Jean des Cloches
by Fiona Fargazer
Summary: The archdeacon gave the abandoned baby to Claude to raise for penance for his crimes, but by the time he realizes that it was a mistake it is too late to take it back. A retelling of the Disney movie with some inspiration from the novel and some inspiration from the Golden Legend and other historical research and Christian tradition.
1. Chapter 1

Jean des Cloches

ONE

The cry of every infant is the cry of being pried from warmth and comfort with Mother and forced into a cold, dry, penetrating world. The difference is, though, many are swept instantly into their mother's safe warm arms in a soft blanket, there are those too for whom it seems that the best of life they will ever feel is before they leave the womb. Such was the dreary night for one poor child among millions. Insignificant, it may seem—just one screaming infant that may or may not grow to live in squalor in such a miserable place as in the gutters of such a prominent city as Paris.

The sky looked liable to burst at any moment, but rain resisted falling. It just made a black night all the blacker. The orange glow of candlelight from a caravan looked from a distance to be a warm refuge from the miserable surroundings as it caught the bright colors and lovely stitched designs of the Gypsies. Indeed it would have been a warm glow in the end if it had not been for the infant himself.

The poor young mother barely older than fifteen and as slight a thing as a wisp on the wind fainted away. The women surrounding her quickly proved her to still be alive, and her breathing not too strained to fear death for her right away.

But as they turned to the infant, their relief soon gave way to another dread. First there came a gasp and then hushed voices. The father of the girl outside the wagon became impatient and stepped to the drapery in front of the back entrance of the wagon to see for himself what had happened. Just before he entered, the eldest of the three women inside threw open the cloth.

She jumped and squirmed uncomfortably at the sight of the man into which she almost ran into, and lowering her eyes she hesitated to say anything at all.

"What?" the man demanded. "What happened? Is she—?"

"No, so far she's only fainted," the woman gasped.

"Then what?!" hissed the man.

"The infant …" the woman finally let out.

"What?"

Pushing past her, he climbed inside the wagon and shoved his way through the other two women, other members of the family. Then he saw what the old woman had meant, and his eyes grew huge with horror and disbelief.

The pitiful cries did not come from a tender headed, kicking little red babe but a horrid red goblin, a creature from nightmares, all curled up like some sickening lobster covered with human flesh, and a face like that of a wax monkey melted partway by the flaming tuft of red hair on the top of the bulbous head.

The man staggered and felt suddenly lightheaded in this confined space. He nearly knocked over one of the candles as he tried to steady himself.

"The infant is cursed …" one of the women whispered shakily.

"We should kill it," hissed a second. "Its curse will spread to us if we keep it!"

"Don't be an ass, woman," the third woman said, the one who had met the man at the door, and she shook her head. "To kill it in cold blood? Could you commit such a wicked crime on so helpless a thing?"

The man ignored them and wiped the brow of the poor girl who still seemed to be breathing all right. She reacted a little from his touch but she remained lying with eyes closed.

"We should leave it somewhere," the old woman continued. "Somewhere in the city. It won't be killing it. It'll just be someone else's problem."

"Where?" growled the man glaring again at the wailing babe.

"I know the place," the old woman said.

Thus away with the child they flew. The old woman and the man stayed with the girl and the other two women left in a small wagon with the second woman's son and a couple other family members.

It was about this time at last that the rain began to fall. The clouds ripped open as a bubble long holding up and poured now like a never-emptying bucket upon the city.

One woman left the wagon suddenly with a shawl over her head to keep cover from the rain and a ragged blanket over the babe whose cries were becoming very weak. As she stepped out onto the cobbled street a ways she heard suddenly another cry of another baby. She paused, holding the babe in her arms close, and it stopped its cries long enough for the woman to hear the other more clearly, and it was very near and very solitary.

As the woman looked towards a flight of steps she saw in a flash of lightning a basket with tiny arms reaching out in desperation.

They were not the only ones abandoning infants this night.

As the woman came closer for a peek, she saw that this child in contrast with the monster in her arms was the most beautiful baby. A little thin perhaps and it was older than a newborn by at least a month, but without blemish on her skin and a little tuft of dark hair atop the head. A warm blanket covered her, and a pair of baby slippers adorned the feet. The only reason why anyone would throw such a beautiful child away was such desperate poverty or shame in the belief that the baby could not be kept, and as the people of the city knew, the only place to leave an unwanted child where he or she could hope for a future was as a ward of the Church.

After a pause of thought, the woman took it upon herself to give the proper infant a chance to have a real family. After all, no one else wanted the child. She knew exactly what she would do.

If she lived, the poor girl at home would not know that this child plucked from a basket was not her own, and she would never know the beast she bore after being raped by a son of Christian men. Thus as the woman glanced down at the gruesome creature resembling the beasts with which the Christians mutilated their cathedral behind the shadows of angels and saints, she thought that surely this was where such a ghastly living gargoyle belonged.

#

So annoyed was the honorable judge Claude Frollo that he hardly took note in the rain that pelted down. He wore a wide hood over his hat and that was enough. In a flash of lightning he looked up at the grand façade of Notre Dame, but he did not see the magnificence of the architecture, nor the angels or saints or even the gargoyles, save when he glanced at the depiction of the Last Judgment above the main portal. Here it was only to think how proud of a position he had as an acting representative of judgment on earth and that by rights no priest should have the power to call him to confession unless he saw fit to come himself.

He had little desire to face the archdeacon, not from fear but simply out of annoyance and the principle of the thing. The archdeacon probably would not even be expecting him in such weather, but it was Frollo's custom to make his points. He had been told to come this morning. Thus first thing this morning rain or shine, Frollo had determined to make his appearance.

Closing his eyes for a moment briefly he took to the first step of the cathedral, but just as he lifted his other foot, he paused at the sound of crying after a deep roll of thunder had passed. Glancing to his side he saw movement coming from under the left hand portal of the Virgin. A shroud as of a ghost seemed to be wafting, and stepping back he looked to see what person could be standing there. In another flash of lightning, he saw to his surprise the glint of gold earrings adorning an otherwise shabby-looking woman. A gypsy who was at that moment taking a baby from the basket below her, switched the one within with something that Frollo perceived to be a sickly piglet in the eerily cast light.

 _What revolting trickery_! Frollo thought.

At first the woman did not see Frollo standing before the main portal, but it did not take her long after she turned around and saw with a gasp the tall, commanding figure in the rain standing like a spirit of death in his huge black hood and statuesque pose. With a gasp, the woman nearly dropped the crying babe wrapped in blankets that were clearly not of gypsy-make but of some impoverished Parisian peasant.

It was not that Frollo often thought of impoverished peasants, but the principle of the event stood strongly. A gypsy woman was kidnapping a ward of the church and in mockery of everyone's intelligence and pride had replaced the child with some grunting animal perhaps too sickly and thin to eat.

Thus as the judge he happened to be, he took action immediately.

So did the woman.

She leapt upright in a moment and let out a ragged cry, but what Frollo did not know at first was that her cry did not have to do with getting caught switching infants. But it was that she did not fully comprehend that Frollo had not yet seen the boy, her son, who was about to attempt picking Frollo's pocket. In such pouring rain, the boy might have gotten away with it too, but instead of providing a distraction, the woman's shriek only caused the boy to accidently swing his arm against Frollo's side in his own surprise, and of course Frollo had him in an instant.

The wagon already came rumbling towards the woman. The people inside snatched her up baby and all. She tried to leap back out for the boy, but the others yanked her back inside. There would be no hope for him. Authority had already arriving at Frollo's call. If the wagon did not hurry, they would all be caught and condemned of both kidnapping and theft and mischief overall. Perhaps they would even be accused of murder! They knew who that man was. They did not have to see his face. No vagabond of any sort was tolerated for disturbing the peace of the city in the eyes of such an infamous judge as Claude Frollo. Thus with screaming woman and screaming infant, the wagon disappeared into the night as fast as the horses could carry them.

About this time too, the archdeacon appeared on the scene. Through the raging storm he could certainly hear a woman shrieking like a lost soul just outside. He hurried to the narthex and swung open a portal door. It happened to be the portal of the Virgin, so that before he saw horseman and swords he looked down just in time to keep himself from tripping over the basket which held the poor replacement infant so weak it could barely cry and only made queer aching sounds. At first the archdeacon made to stoop down and pick up the basket, but he straightened as he saw the youth being taken away by authorities from the hands of a man he knew only too well.

"Claude!" he gasped running out into the rain bareheaded save a small cap. "What's going on here!?"

Frollo looked entirely undisturbed by the archdeacon's presence, and without turning to look at him, he retorted rather calmly, "He was caught in the act of thievery and was among the company of a troupe of gypsy tramps kidnapping a ward of the church."

"What are you talking about!?" demanded the archdeacon throwing his hands out imploringly. "I just called you over here to talk about your unfair trials and judgments and now you're at it again!"

"He'll be given a trial," said Frollo with a sniff.

"Will he indeed!?" gasped the archdeacon angrily. "You'll treat him like a hardened murderer escaped thrice from prison, and he's only a boy! And there's a woman screaming that seems to have vanished out into the tempest, and a baby barely alive at the door!"

"That's no baby," muttered Frollo, still watching the boy being taken away for a moment. Then he swept past the archdeacon and lifted the basket as though something rotting lay inside, but as both men stood under the shelter of the portal and looked into the basket, both gasped.

In disgust and shock, Frollo dropped the basket, but the archdeacon caught it just barely in time and almost fell over down the step to do so. The infant inside began to choke and to try again to cry, but it sounded so miserable it only added to the poor creature's appearance.

"I saw them do it!" Frollo snapped. "I saw them switch the baby for that—that worse than an animal!"

"It's a human child," retorted the archdeacon, and he took it out of the basket to at least warm the baby against the storm as he lifted it with barely a napkin to warm it to his chest and wrapped it in his cloak.

"A changeling more like it!" sniffed Frollo. "A thing possessed, perhaps!"

The archdeacon ignored him, blessed the baby and brought him into the church. In the candlelight he looked upon the poor babe and saw truly its contorted form. In his heart, however the archdeacon saw more sickliness than ugliness, and he knew also that the child had very little time to live if he was not given something for nourishment.

Claude Frollo came in behind the archdeacon, his brother in honesty, but the archdeacon Benjamin Frollo did not look back. He simply wrapped the child back up in his cloak and said, "I'm going to call Madame Courtois, the midwife. She's only down the street."

"No woman in her right mind would nurture that thing," grumbled Frollo. "Obviously the little beast's own mother had no care for it."

The archdeacon closed his eyes and tried to ease his anger into patience, which he always found the most difficult when in the presence of Claude Frollo.

" _Boy_ ," he corrected. "The child is a _boy_."

Frollo snorted, but the archdeacon wasted no more time as he went himself down the street in the rain for the midwife with the child in his arms.

#

As the rain ceased and the late morning sun began to peek weakly out onto the city of Paris, Judge Frollo himself saw the thieving boy from the gypsy troupe hanged. The trial had been quick and to the point as Frollo made sure they always were, yet as the boy gasped his last, it must be admitted that Frollo felt a touch of guilt for the proceedings. He blamed it on his brother, of course. He had just seen him this morning rescuing that lump of flesh uglier than a freshly hatched crow and as fiendish as a red donkey. It was not his brother's irritation that had reached Frollo's heart but his actions. The archdeacon's pity and true charity he processed both in prayer to God and kindness to those in need was something undeniable. Frollo could not help but think that his elder brother was headed into the direction of saintliness, which in comparison to himself he knew, if he was honest with himself, he was certainly not going in that direction.

Oblivious to this impression he had left on the judge, Archdeacon Benjamin was quite surprised to see his brother that very same day ready for confession, and he was frank with the judge in telling him that murder was a most serious mortal sin, a critical offence against God. Such a thing required penance, he told the judge, though he spoke very gently as he said this, for he felt overjoyed that his brother seemed to at last see the wrong in his ways. He said so too that he praised God for his return to his senses.

"The penance," he then said, "if offered willingly will give you the graces to keep you from committing such crimes again."

"Yes, yes, I know," muttered the judge impatiently but still sincere in his words. "What is it you'll have me do?"

"Yes," said the archdeacon and clearing his throat, he said a little more professionally in tone, "Yes, I believe that as penance you should be given the opportunity to show your love for God's souls and learn the balance between true judgment and true mercy. Therefore I give you charge over your own son, which I've always known you mourned over the loss of being able to have since the passing of dear Julienne. The infant on the doorstep is in need of a family and so are you. Therefore I see no greater thing than for you to take him as your own."

Judge Frollo tried to hide his disappointment. He would have preferred a haircloth shirt, or a ten-year pilgrimage on foot to the Holy Land with ashes sprinkled on his head every morning. In protest he said very calmly, "Surely the baby is at death's door."

The archdeacon nodded. "It is possible that he will not survive still, but so far he's already improved now that he's been fed and warmed. Until his last breath you will be responsible for his care."

"I know nothing of rearing children."

"Madame Courtois will help you until he is weaned."

"If ever he's weaned," muttered the judge. "If ever he'll be anything close to being considered a normal human being, whether he lives or not. How can I raise him as my son?"

"Trust in God," said the archdeacon most grave in tone. "That is another lesson for you to learn. If you can trust and love in the situation of this boy then it will bring both your soul and the boy's close to our dear home in heaven."

"If such a thing can even possess one …"

Benjamin frowned.

The judge sighed but nodded.

"God will help you raise him if you humble yourself to let Him," said Benjamin. "For the strengthening of your faith, your charity, and your patience, and humility. This _is_ your penance and none other. And remember that this is a penance not a punishment. If you remember this, one day you will see the child as the greatest gift to you. A true and loving son in your old age."

The judge closed his eyes, and though he still looked a little unhappy about the archdeacon's decision he remained patient and accepting of it. He allowed himself to be led to where the baby slept in a monk dormitory.

As Judge Frollo neared the new basket and the blanket inside, he hoped that the lightning and ill-lit cathedral of earlier that morning had caused the baby to look more monstrous than it actually would in true light of midday, but when he looked he was appalled to see that the baby was actually more gruesome, though perhaps less monstrous, than he had seemed the first time. It was little wonder why the gypsies wanted to get rid of him.

Yet in the light and calm, the judge's heart, which truly had become more humble than usual, felt a sincere pity for the little abandoned creature. At first it was more of the type of pity one may have over a wounded animal, but he soon felt that his brother may be right. Maybe he could better this poor creature and raise him to be at least inwardly a good little soul. Either way, the judge determined at that moment to raise him well, and he felt rather good about himself.

Later that very evening he had the baby baptized in case he should not survive the night, and Archdeacon Benjamin performed the ceremony in private after evening mass.

When it came time to name the child, he had to pause and ask his brother, "What shall the boy be called?"

"I've decided," said the judge, "to name him after the day upon which he was found."

Archdeacon Benjamin could not help but make a face. "Quasimodo Sunday?" he asked doubtfully.

"In honor of the fact," the judge explained calmly and confidently, "that he will grow from the milk of truth."

"It's not in the least bit orthodox to call a child such a name," the archdeacon protested. "He should still have a true Christian name. Besides. 'Quasimodo' in itself has not a becoming meaning."

"And 'Marie' itself means 'bitter', after all," retorted the judge. "And the Mother of God bears the name."

The archdeacon suppressed the urge to yell at the judge for his impossible nature, but he could not suppress a downright huff that escaped almost of its own accord. "At least, _mon frère_! At least if you must call him that, give him also a baptismal name to go with it."

"Jean."

It was said so quickly and sharply and cut right into the archdeacon's last phrase so that at first the archdeacon did not comprehend what his brother had said, but shaking his head back to attention he nodded with satisfaction. He knew that the judge had only chosen the name because it had been the first name to come into his head for its common nature. Yet although common, it was only because of its strength as a name that the popularity of "Jean" endured.

He looked down at the baby in his arms.

"Yes. 'Jean' you are," he said.

"But you must promise me something," said the judge suddenly.

Archdeacon Benjamin hesitated and looked upon the judge with uncertainty.

"Yes?" he asked.

"You must promise to allow me to raise the _boy_ here."

"Here?"

"My house is not suitable for children whether well or otherwise. It is not a good neighborhood besides."

"He can't live in the cathedral," the archdeacon protested.

"And why not?" the judge demanded. "If it is a service to God to raise the boy the least that can be done is to promise me the boy can be housed within these strong walls. May he learn the ways of the Church from infancy."

Though not at all convinced, the archdeacon knew that it would be no use arguing about it at present. He would wait until later.

For now, the baptism concluded and little Jean Quasimodo was washed over his head from the font. The cold chill of the water, as was only natural for most babies, caused him to cry. The cry had certainly regained its strength since he had been found on the steps. It echoed throughout the vast cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and out into the square and the streets beyond.


	2. Chapter 2

JMJ

TWO

At first the archdeacon was rather pleased with his brother's seemingly changed opinion of the child. The judge seemed to take almost a motherly precaution to protect him from all possible danger. He used his own money to pay the midwife and bought the warmest blankets and the most comfortable little cradle bed. As a widower with no family and a well-paying civil position, he could afford it too. The midwife thought the whole procedure rather queer and rumors spread about the actions of the judge, but it seemed only to cause more resolve in him to protect his adopted son. He became downright possessive over him, and the kindness with which the archdeacon heard his brother speak to the boy was a softness he had beforehand never thought him capable of.

The only thing that yet the archdeacon disapproved of was the fact that the judge did not bring the boy into his own home. In fact, after the judge dismissed the midwife the instant the boy no longer needed milk, he had him live in the upper levels of the cathedral— the actual towers. There the boy would be hidden from the world, but no matter how the archdeacon tried to discuss the subject with him, the judge would not hear of it.

At least the judge was true to his word. He never forgot to come and devote much of his time for the caring of the child in between duties and a few other affairs. Even his ruthlessness as a judge had diminished somewhat; though the archdeacon was often suspicious of certain trials dealing with the lower class and foreigners.

As for the child himself, the hope that being well taken care of would help the boy's outer appearance faded rather quickly. Only his thick red hair did anything to lessen the gruesomeness of his face in pure physicality, but the fact that the boy was such an amiable and spritely spirit helped one to see past it a little. When he could walk, which was only with a very strange and awkward gait on his bow legs and very highly arched spine, he would frolic after the judge like an eager lamb. He often followed him right out the door of Notre Dame, and the judge would not stop him if his destination allowed him to come back to the cathedral before dark. When the judge was not around and there was nothing major going on in the cathedral, the boy could be heard in the upper towers playing fanciful boyish games or sometimes singing to himself the hymns and chants he had heard since infancy.

Claude seemed to dote more as the child grew old enough to learn to read and to write. He bought books for him (a very expensive endeavor), modest but very comfortable clothing, and plenty to eat. He taught the boy himself up in the towers, and the boy was excited to learn and quick to catch on to many things.

Aside from the boy's living in the bell towers, everything seemed to be going quite well as far as the archdeacon knew, except for one more very peculiar thing. The archdeacon began to notice slowly that the boy never called the judge his father. He only ever called him by one thing: "master."

It was here for the first time a shadow doubt about his decision crossed the archdeacon's mind about the penance. His brother was a proud man, a stern and stubborn man. It was perhaps, that the judge, although willingly accepting his penance, could never bring himself to think of the boy as ever becoming his equal. The archdeacon did not want to think uncharitably about the judge, but after he noticed this strange phenomenon, he began to watch the relationship between boy and judge far more closely.

Then suddenly, the archdeacon took note of how the boy rarely went out after the judge anymore. He rarely stepped outside Notre Dame at all. In fact, the archdeacon did not see him much coming down the steps. The boy remained up in the towers and was reluctant to go anywhere else when the judge was not around.

There came a day when the archdeacon noticed that he could no longer hear the boy playing or singing in the towers. Nor could he be heard the next day either. A fear that the boy was dead crossed the archdeacon's mind, and he would not wait for the judge to show up to ask him. He hurried up the steps himself into the bell tower, and at first it seemed as though it truly was vacant save for the startled doves taking flight, but the archdeacon soon found the boy lying on a little mat on the floor. Or at least he had been lying on the floor before the archdeacon's entrance and the boy jumped with a start to see him. He looked absolutely petrified.

"You're grace!" exclaimed the boy.

"Are you all right?" asked the archdeacon.

The boy tried to pull himself upright, and although it seemed to cause him much pain, he would have managed it, but the archdeacon would not have it. He lied him back down on his side, for the poor boy could not hope to sleep on his back comfortably.

"You're ill," the archdeacon insisted.

"I'm sorry …" sobbed the boy tears welling in great globs in his eyes.

The archdeacon, feeling quite exasperated, tried to remain calm as he shook his head and said gently, "You don't have to apologize for being ill." In thought he raged: _Why isn't Claude here taking care of you!?_

At once he left to fetch another blanket and some soup. He prayed for the boy at his bedside, and talked comfortingly as he might, but the boy still looked uncomfortable about the whole thing as though he was committing some crime by allowing the archdeacon to take care of him. At last the archdeacon left, and none too soon, for just as he reached the bottom of the stairs he ran into the judge.

"Claude!" he gasped.

Claude jolted in surprise and leered but said nothing at first.

"Where have you been?" the archdeacon demanded.

"A longwinded trial with Monsieur Lord Francisque," grumbled the judge. "What are you doing? Checking on the sound quality of the bells?"

"I've just come from caring for _your_ son. As sick as a dog!"

"Yes, well, he can't really be sicker than anything else, can he?" asked the judge with some irritation.

"I mean it," said the archdeacon.

"He didn't look ill last night," the judge retorted.

"I think he's afraid to admit he's sick, but he can't hide it now, whatever he acted like before to you," said the archdeacon.

"I'll get him well," muttered the judge pushing past his brother rather rudely as he took the steps. "We won't have a spread of illness in the house of God."

"Claude…" said the archdeacon with much concern.

The judge stopped and allowed his anger to pass on as he turned now mildly to the archdeacon.

"I promise you," he said. "I swear it. I did not know he was ill. Why he should be afraid of telling me disturbs me just as much as it disturbs you."

The episode ended better than could have been expected as the boy grew better again within a week or so and became more himself. His games and singing in the towers could be heard at times again much to the archdeacon's satisfaction, but the boy still did not venture down. That had had nothing to do with illness, at least in the more ordinary sense of the word.

#

It then came to pass that a new thought occurred to the archdeacon that if the boy was as well taught as it seemed, for the judge had the boy studying hard at such an early age and seemed pleased with the results as much as the boy seemed eager to learn and was never an ill-tempered or wayward child. His confessions were perhaps too scrupulous than too presumptuous as the archdeacon as a priest told the boy after every one. But there seemed little problem with brining up the possibility of an early first communion. With an understanding of the catechism, the archdeacon saw it only befitting as he was an untimely believer in gaining the nurturing Body and Blood of Christ as soon as a child could understand, and he believed that in most cases this was quite early in a child's development: seven or eight years of age, at least. It was a belief too, which he strongly and stubbornly upheld, for at times he could be just as stubborn as his brother was.

Thus it was more than a mere passing suggestion when he brought up the concept to his brother who believed in entirely the opposite upon the subject that only a fully adult individual with a serious and controlled mind could even think of receiving the Eucharist. The conflict between brothers created some friction between them for about two or three years. Again, the archdeacon only prayed the harder for the boy that he would be allowed to be granted such strength.

One day after a long while of giving up on the topic in conversation, the archdeacon said to the judge as gently as he could, "You are up there teaching him every day, _mon frère_. He's no fool. I know that much. Simple, but no fool. And he is in no way a troublesome child, but as meek and humble as is spoken by our Lord that to be a follower of him you must be as a child."

"I know he's not ready for it," said the judge patiently in return.

"Then how long do you deem would be the necessary time to wait for him to be ready?" asked the archdeacon.

"I deem he never shall be, I'm afraid to say," replied the judge.

"Never!?"

#

Never mind his brother, the archdeacon would find out for himself what was going on with the boy. After all, he felt at least to be the godfather in a sense over the boy and that he had some responsibility. Besides that too, he had a love for the poor child as though he was family, and he was, if only by adoption or not.

As he came to the bell tower, the boy jumped to see the archdeacon instead of the judge.

"Your grace!" exclaimed the boy humbling himself prostrate before him.

"That's all right now," said the archdeacon. "There's no need for that. Not even the pope deserves such homage as that." Though, the word that the archdeacon felt more appropriate than "homage" was "groveling".

The boy stood up but still looked most unnerved with head bowed to the floor.

"You haven't done anything wrong, poor boy," said the archdeacon touching him gently on the arm for reassurance, and he smiled. "I just came up to ask how things are getting along … you know. With your lessons."

"Master says I'm not trying hard enough," the boy said sadly.

The archdeacon thought a moment and then seating himself upon a little bench provided by the judge he said, "What about your catechism? I'm sure you're doing well with that."

"Yes, your grace, Master taught me catechism," said the boy with a nod.

"Well, then," said the archdeacon, and he asked him a couple various questions about it, which the boy responded to word per word from the book from memory.

And the archdeacon nodded with satisfaction. "It seems you're learning very well. Claude said that you were not understanding something. Understanding is different than memorizing, but if you have any question in particular, maybe I can clear it up, eh? That's why I came up here."

"Oh, no, you're grace," said the boy. "I understand it all. Master makes sure I know everything."

"Ah, good, good," said the archdeacon quite perturbed. "Then as I can safely judge your good character and sincerity and I can see that you've memorized your catechism then I don't see why there should be any problem with you having first communion this coming Sunday."

The boy hesitated and fidgeted uncomfortably.

"What's wrong?" asked the archdeacon.

"Master's says I shouldn't."

The archdeacon raised a brow. "Why not?"

"Because Jesus doesn't love me. He would not want someone like me to devoir him. I have no place in His salvation or His miracles."

In a most profound silence Archdeacon Benjamin stared with wide eyes upon the boy, and he could hardly believe what had come out of his mouth. Under such an intense stare, the boy looked away self-consciously and looked to be trying to hold back tears.

"Wh…where?" croaked the archdeacon having a difficult time finding his voice. "Where would you come up with a thought like that?" Naturally, he had only one idea; though he prayed it was not so.

The boy seemed to think that the archdeacon was angry with him as he shrunk back and said in a quiet little voice, "Jesus only loves people who have souls, because they're the only ones who can be saved."

"And why wouldn't you have one?!" gasped the archdeacon feeling very ill. "You go to confession, don't you? You need a soul for that too. You've been baptized. You need a soul for that."

"I'm sorry, your grace," the boy sobbed. "Please don't be mad. It's just the truth."

At last the archdeacon composed himself and apologized for his outburst. As he set his hand upon the boy again he said as gently and kindly as he could, "Jean. Come down with me."

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No, no, _mon enfant_. Come on," he urged.

"Master says I shouldn't go downstairs without his permission."

"Come on," the archdeacon again urged as he led him delicately towards the stairs. "Claude can take it out on me all he wants. He'll have to make an exception this time. It's still the Christmas season, after all. Oh, and there is one thing. Don't call me 'Your grace'. It's not necessary. I'm the archdeacon not the archbishop. Call me ' _monsieur_ ' or ' _abbé_ ' even, as I am the priest of Notre Dame, but not 'your grace'."

"Yes, _monsieur_."

Although the boy came willingly he still looked a little unsure as though his master might appear behind some shadow and or other and chase him back upstairs into the cold dark tower, colder and darker than usual in wintertime, as the archdeacon could not help but point out to himself.

"Every creature," the archdeacon now said as they came to the last step and he opened the door for the boy, "and everything on this earth is created by God. That's in your catechism."

"Yes, _monsieur_. I remember," said the boy most politely as they both stepped into the church.

One or two people previously praying looked up curiously, but the archdeacon ignored them. The boy looked once or twice but tried to follow the archdeacon's example.

"Every living thing has a soul too," said the archdeacon quietly so as not to disturb the other people who were praying with more concentration. "Even the animals. You are more than an animal, aren't you?"

"But Jesus' salvation doesn't count with animals."

"They don't have free will and their souls are not immortal, but he made them and he is pleased with them. Man needs salvation, because Adam abused free will. You were born of the same race as Adam, weren't you?"

"Some people are born without souls," said the boy sadly, "and I'm one of them."

The archdeacon sighed more sadly than the boy.

This made the boy sadder still to see the archdeacon so upset, so he tried to assure him: "I'm not upset about it, _monsieur_."

"The only things that don't have souls are inanimate objects like the stones that were used to construct these walls."

He continued slowly leading the boy towards the front as they walked along the south side aisle.

"I know with my whole being," the archdeacon insisted, "that you, Jean, have a soul, and that your soul, as a small an innocent boy that you are, is more beautiful than many that seem beautiful on the outside. I baptized you myself, and only a soul made by God can be baptized and left with that indelible mark that proves His ownership over your soul. Your Christian name means 'gift'. You are a gift from God, and you have a God-given duty to keep your soul beautiful your whole life, because it is a temple of the Holy Ghost more precious than a thousand cathedrals twice as magnificent as the one we're in now. The cathedral is only made of stone, but you and I and every other person in the whole world is a living, breathing soul. You must understand."

The boy only stared blankly up at him with his queer large eyes, but in that way that children do when what one is telling them does not completely compute.

They were in the front now at the far end of the crossing. Turning to the boy, the archdeacon sighed once more and seated himself upon a small chair near the Portal of St. Stephen at the south transept. He glanced up at the high altar and closed his eyes.

"Your grace?" asked the boy.

Opening his eyes again the archdeacon looked up at the crucifix upon the high altar.

"I want you to promise me something."

"Yes, your grace? Uh, I mean, _monsieur l'archidiacre_."

"Notre Dame. She is the mother of God." He motioned to the high altar. "The mother of Paris, the mother of France and the mother of the whole world. _Your_ mother. You live in the house of God, which bears her name. She is your patron along with all the noble Saints John. It was told to the first St. John specifically to care for her as his Mother. I want you to promise me that you will remember her as your Mother." He paused and at last looked down upon the poor boy again. Placing a hand upon the boy's shoulder he asked, "You know how to pray the Hail Mary?"

At first the boy looked confused again, but taking a deep breath he recited, " _Ave Maria, gratia plena—_ "

" _C'est bon_ ," the archdeacon interrupted and stifled a slight laugh as he held up his hands for the boy to stop, and he smiled. "Pray at least three every day. Don't just recite. Pray. Pray for your innocence so that you remain pure and good-hearted. Pray for the gift of understanding, for wisdom and discernment. Pray that you never forget about the temple inside of you. Those three things. For three Hail Marys." He touched the boy's head affectionately and ran his fingers through his red mop of hair. "Will you promise me this? With first an Our Father too in remembrance that God is your loving father: thank God for the gift of life that you have and everything He has given you and everything that is waiting for you in heaven."

"I promise, _monsieur_ ," said the boy with an eager nod. Then he reflected a moment as he turned away. "But it will do me no good, I think."

"It will," insisted the archdeacon. "You trust me, don't you?"

"I'm sorry, monsieur archdeacon, I'm trying to understand."

" _D'accord_ ," said the archdeacon. " _D'accord_. Then stop saying it will do you no good. It will. God hears the prayers of little children, and you are His child. I'm afraid you must be misunderstanding Claude. He is a very proud and strict man and you so sensitive a soul. It is most certainly a misunderstanding. You have a soul otherwise you wouldn't be alive. Stay with your mother, and she will help you to one day be in heaven, your homeland. She loves you. God loves you."

"Should I pray those prayers now, _monsieur l'archidiacre_?"

The archdeacon nodded as he stood up from the little chair. "Yes, start now." He gently patted the boy's head, and as the archdeacon began to withdraw the boy knelt down on the floor. "Here, here," the archdeacon helped him onto a kneeler. "There you are."

"Thank you, monsieur archdeacon," said the boy shyly.

The archdeacon only smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

JMJ

THREE

Again time passed.

The archdeacon visited the boy more often and invited him down to mass and services and often simply out onto the grounds for walks outside in the evening. At first the judge resented the archdeacon's actions when he found out, but when the archdeacon explained what had been going on in the boy's head, the judge again became quite sympathetic and agreed to allow the archdeacon to continue. He even agreed to allow the boy the sacrament of the Eucharist. Never did the judge give an explanation for why the boy might have thought as he had, going so far as to believe something so awful as not having a soul, but the archdeacon did not press.

Communion for the boy was the last thing the archdeacon pushed for, and it was not an occurrence that was going to last much longer. His will and strength seemed to be waning, and the judge knew that to be gentle with his brother now would do him good. Only the boy did not understand until within the same year, when autumn descended in a bleak wet manner hardly allowing for the color of leaves, the archdeacon became bedridden. Assistant priests had to take over for the archdeacon at Notre Dame for mass. The chapter and even the judge helped with other affairs.

When the boy learned of these events, he longed to visit the archdeacon in bed, but the judge would not hear of it.

"The archdeacon," the judge would tell him sternly, "needs his rest if there is any hope for recovery."

Recovery did not seem likely as October gave way to November, and November pressed towards December. Yet it was the archdeacon himself who at last called the boy for a visit. The judge could not refuse any longer when that call became a demand.

The old priest affirmed the boy in his promises and blessed his head, but not much more could be done before the judge came in again and made the boy leave too soon.

As a grim shadow the judge appeared behind the boy. Anger was in his eyes. Darkness hovered like a black cloud around him.

"Quasimodo."

The boy jumped and spun around. "Master."

"Go back to the tower."

Like a spotted rodent, the boy scurried away as fast as he could.

Then the judge turned to the archdeacon. In turn Benjamin looked up at the judge in a most miserable manner, but with a touch of anger himself. He looked away as the judge's expression turned into a glare.

"I should have never left him to you," said the archdeacon weakly as he closed his eyes very wearily.

"He would have died," said the judge stiffly, but upon seeing his brother so weak his features softened and the sorrow in his heart for his dying brother and last living relative came out upon his face.

"It doesn't matter," said the archdeacon after a moment or two.

"What?"

"You're killing him anyway. I was too blinded by my love for you. Please, Claude. Please."

"You rest, Benjamin," said the judge coming to the bedside and putting his hand upon his brothers' shoulder.

"I beg you," said the archdeacon. "Save the boy … Poor Jean."

"I …" Claude began rather beside himself, "I will be gentler if you insist."

But the archdeacon did not seem to hear him. "Forgive me," he whispered.

"For what? You've done nothing against me."

But no sooner had the judge spoken than he understood. The archdeacon was not speaking to him. Before the archdeacon could speak again he knew.

" _Mea culpa_. God forgive me," the archdeacon wheezed. "Forgive _him_ …"

#

The next day, Quasimodo watched from the shadows someone ringing the bells. He loved the bells and had since the moment he comprehended them. They reflected the light of the sun and the moon when they were silent. They sang the music of angels when they rang out clear over the city of Paris. It was a calming thing even if so loud as it was in the upper levels of the cathedral. It was only an order by Frollo that had kept him from going deaf by going too near to hear them, but it remained an attraction that the boy could not explain. It was as though the only beauty of the cathedral that he considered himself allowed to truly enjoy, especially now with the archdeacon so ill and he was no longer invited downstairs. Often his master forbade him down altogether except to be at the back of Sunday Mass. Soon he would not be allowed that.

Once the bells had sounded their last, Quasimodo went back to his table and chair where he came back to a book that was part of his studies, but he could not focus. His only thought was on the condition of the archdeacon. He was his only other family aside from the judge. His uncle and godfather, the archdeacon had told him, and seeing him as he had last night so frail and gaunt had shaken the boy to his core. His uncle had almost looked like the corpses he had seen in connection with funerals and burials.

Taking up a piece of stone which he had found and kept and which was soft enough to leave a mark like chalk, he began to draw on one of the loose boards he had gathered from the rafters. He drew a gothic-styled floral design after the fashion of the décor of Notre Dame, the entirety of what he understood about art save the pictures in some of the Books of Hours. Slowly with his tongue sticking out to one side he concentrated on the delicate curves he drew. He was just placing a bell off to the side too but at that moment the door opened to his little chamber and his master appeared.

Slamming down the board, Quasimodo quickly picked up his book again and rubbed out the stone marks, a little harder to do than with chalk marks.

His master looked more serious and brooding than normal for him, and Quasimodo looked up with concern from his book as the judge approached. He looked down upon him with anger in his eyes.

"Master?" asked Quasimodo, but the judge did not respond. Quasimodo's mild eyes could not stand up to his and did not will to try as he lowered his head to the table again "I … I'll work harder on my studies, master. I'm sorry."

The judge stepped back a pace and the creases in his brow lessened. "I came to tell you regrettable news."

Raising his eyes again to his master hesitantly, Quasimodo waited in fearful anticipation.

"The archdeacon," said the judge with some pain in his voice, "is dead."

Still Quasimodo was silent, but a dark wing seemed to have swept over him as the wing of a massive crow.

#

That depth of sightless grief and confusion followed Quasimodo as he was allowed to attend the funeral. A wide hood over his head hid his features or his grief, but no one took any notice of him. The people of Notre Dame had had great affection for the archdeacon and were sad to see him go. The poor and lowly of Paris loved him more than many of the proud and the rich, but the sorrow of Quasimodo and his master was the deepest, for they knew him also as their family, almost the father figure of the family, the patriarch of a tiny clan, but now he was no more, and there would be no guidance from him any longer.

"He was my brother," Frollo later told the boy when they were up in the cathedral tower again.

Outside ravaging wind blew leaves and debris around as though it was throwing a tantrum. The dim red sun of evening looked like embers in a fireplace about to go out.

"The eldest brother," Frollo went on staring out after the leaves and did not grace the boy with a glance. "He tried to save our lazy, no good brother Jehan, but Jehan would not listen. Benjamin did everything to bring him back from his despicably wayward ways of drinking, gambling, and other such obscenity. It brought him to his death one night in the end drunk as a dog and falling into the Seine. How it broke Benjamin's heart. But nor have I appreciated Benjamin as I should have. I have been asked by some to carry on his work as archdeacon. The chapter is especially keen to have a well-known blood relative of the archdeacon take his place, but I cannot walk in my brother's shoes. He was a gentle, ever-obliging soul. The world was too harsh for him. He had always been frail, and it was his frailty which no doubt caused him to take great pity on other frail and sickly things like the soul of Jehan and all the poor miserable wretches who don't work hard enough to earn a descent living for themselves and they begged charity. How few deserved his kindness and charity … he took great pity on you, Quasimodo, for which you should be ever grateful."

Quasimodo lifted his head to his master, but could find nothing to say. He had not opened his mouth since before the funeral. He had hardly spoken since he had heard the archdeacon was dead.

"But," said Frollo suddenly rather darkly, "they were just words of pity. He could not face the fact of what you are— a monster neither man nor beast. You are to remain in the tower, never to be seen, for the sake of the people, for the sake of yourself."

Quasimodo choked and tried not to sob as he cracked out the words, "Yes … master …"

There was a long pause in which both Quasimodo and Frollo stared out onto the miserable evening as the sun dipped into the earth and all was drowned in darkness. The wind lessened greatly, but there was one soft sound. It was the first Sunday of Advent, and in the hope of that season of penance there is always Christmas to come as a lone small voice could be heard somewhere outside singing " _Veni, veni, Emanuel_ ".

The softness of it touched Quasimodo's heart, but it seemed to make Frollo stiffer and angrier.

"Not a proper ecclesiastical song …" he could be heard muttering under his breath.

Quasimodo looked up in surprise, for he had found nothing at all of disrespect in the song but only the strongest solemnity. Perhaps his master was only upset and did not mean it. Quasimodo hoped so, for the heart of the singer seemed to come up to the tower and up into the starry night with the deepest love and sincerity for the hope of the coming of the Son of God.

"It's been a long day," remarked Frollo after a time far more casually, and he placed his hand upon Quasimodo's arched back more hunched up than ever it had been before in his grief and uncertainty. "Get some rest."

"Yes, Master," said Quasimodo nodding slowly, but just as he was making for his little mat bed, Frollo stayed him gently a moment.

"I've been meaning to tell you," said Frollo almost kindly. "It isn't much consolation, I know, but it will perhaps make the night easier."

"Master?" asked the boy.

"The old bell ringer Aubin is leaving. He was very fond of the archdeacon and he is old. He has decided to retire from his job. I know how much the bells mean to you. They are yours. You know how and when to ring them …"

Quasimodo smiled weakly, but he was sincerely grateful. Although he felt it perhaps a tad out of keeping with the situation, he felt happy to hear the news. He bowed graciously and said, "Thank you, Master."


	4. Chapter 4

JMJ

FOUR

It was a brisk time for moving in, right after Christmas as it was; though, the air was a little warmer than usual for this time of year. Amidst the snow which framed it, Notre Dame looked nicely refreshed, somehow still glowing in a way from Midnight Mass with a gleam that warmed the spirits.

Although plenty chilled in midmorning and the warmth of indoors called out to him, Fr. Pierre André paused first to look up at the high towers reaching up into the silver sky. He felt somewhat intimidated despite its unusual freshness, it must be admitted. Having been removed as curé of a quiet little parish in a peaceful sleepy village, this cannot be seen as that extraordinary. Not that he had never been to a cathedral. He had been ordained in one. He had lived and studied in the presence of Notre Dame itself, and his village was not far from Paris. The Lady after whom the church was named also claimed a special place in his heart, for he had had a devotion to her as protector of the first daughter of the Church since his seminary days. Yet it was a daunting task which lay ahead of him as the acting priest of such a cathedral of so many city dwellers and under a hard master, the Archdeacon Claude Frollo.

Fr. André was a funny, round-faced little man. In the cold his round nose might have been replaced with a cherry, and even in the warmth of his new dormitory room later, the rose-color in his nose would not fade out completely. He had a head of prematurely balding chestnut hair which his cap could not quite conceal. The roundness of his form was more hereditary shape in his short body and thick bones more than a soft lifestyle. Despite his hikes (more convenient to walk than to try to ride up on a horse of donkey) along the gnarly hill to give the sacraments to an elderly man who lived outside the village and a few other regularly-made treks for his parishioners he showed no signs of physical ability. His gray eyes were very mild beneath soft brows. He had also a slight habit of fidgeting when nervous as now. His fingers played with the sleeves of his robe at that very moment, and overall he possessed an appearance that would make most agree that such a priest was better off in the countryside in a quiet little church or possibly at a private chapel for a devout lord or lady but not the acting priest of Notre Dame in the middle of the city of Paris. No one agreed more than Fr. André himself!

The fact was, that the archdeacon was not a priest. It was not necessary to be a priest in order to be an archdeacon, but in a diocese in which there was no true archbishop Fr. André felt there to be something not quite right in there somewhere. Nevertheless it was the archdeacon who personally chose Fr. André to come and replace another priest who apparently, rumor went, had not gotten along well with the archdeacon. Talk of such unrest within the hierarchy was most unsettling to Fr. André, especially as there were other assistant priests at Notre Dame more adept who had not been invited to take the position. Why the archdeacon chose him was beyond him. He had only met him in person a few times before, and most of those times were before his ordination. In the end, Fr. André at least had to believe that it was God's will that he had been called here whatever the reason the archdeacon had.

It was a challenge which Fr. André felt to be better suited for someone more experienced and stronger willed and certainly stronger in the faith. God-willing he would get through this, especially since tomorrow was the first of January. The Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord, yes, a good and noble day in itself, but the people of Paris would not give up also their Feast of Fools easily. Fr. André was not certain that he had the strength to deal with that on his first full day here even with the help of the archdeacon.

After becoming acclimated to his new quarters in the dormitories he could at least comfort himself with the idea that he would have a normal evening mass at Notre Dame before the morrow. He was getting into the usual mode of Mass, vesting and readying himself with the help of the altar boys. There were yet few people inside, giving him time in plenty to go over to kneel before the statue of Notre Dame where it resided to the side of the aisle in a small alcove chapel, and he prayed for her to intercede for him to the Lord for extra strength.

Directly above him, little to his knowledge, was a strange figure in the gallery with head bowed towards the high altar for a small promised prayer of three Hail Maries and one Our Father. Only after Fr. André left the chapel did the figure above begin to move. The sound of the movement aroused the jittery man's head upward, and he saw a queer silhouette that made absolutely no sense unless it belonged to a wild boar attempting to lift itself up like a bear. Whatever it belonged to noticed that it had been spotted, and in an instant it slipped out of view in a stooped sort of way. It hid behind a door surprisingly quite silently and footsteps made their way up to the bell towers.

With eyes still on the gallery, Fr. André tugged on the sleeve of an altar boy, and leaning down to him with eyes still upwards, he asked, "What was that?"

The boy looked a little confused at first, but when he followed the priest's gaze he smiled knowingly, "Oh, that was only Quasimodo, abbé."

"What?" asked Fr. André.

"He lives in the bell tower and rings the bells."

" _Lives_ in it?"

 _Oh! This was going to be a rough job_.

"And is he … all right?" he asked.

"He's an orphan living here through the charity of the Church," a most powerful voice sounded behind them making both altar boy and priest jump.

It was the archdeacon himself looking quite important. He resembled in build his predecessor, but here the similarity ended. Originally the more handsome of the two brothers, his face had grown a tad tight and sharp over the past six years of looking so grim; though, he had lost none of his presence. Nor was one hardly able to consider him ugly even if more intimidating than the cathedral's façade.

"No need to bother yourself about him, abbé," the archdeacon continued far more natural in tone now. "He's quite harmless. A half-wit and rather deformed, the poor boy."

"Oh …" said Fr. André fidgeting a little and looking down at the floor. Then lifting his eyes hesitantly he asked, "What gave him such a fright?"

"Not fright," replied the archdeacon. "He more likely simply realized he was almost late to ring the bells. He takes his duty seriously. It may be the only thing he takes seriously."

"But why does—" Fr. André tried to say and nearly jumped out of his skin as the archdeacon suddenly threw his arm around his shoulder and began leading him to the front.

Frollo's strength was the power of a bear, despite his lank limbs, and Fr. André felt much like a mouse in comparison to such force against his back being propelled like an arrow to the high altar.

"There'll be time to discuss matters of the peculiarities of Notre Dame," Frollo assured him.

"Forgive me, your grace," gasped Fr. André before they had come to a stop, and it was so lost within his breath that he thought it may also have been lost to Frollo's ears as well.

But just as they reached the altar steps the archdeacon paused as he said, "I am not the archbishop but the archdeacon. I am not to be addressed as 'your grace'."

"Ah, excuse me, monsieur," said Fr. André with a smile.

"But if you are to call me something I would prefer it to be 'your honor' as I have never fully been relieved of my duty as official judge over this part of the city, and isn't that what an archdeacon is anyway? A judge? But of the clergy. I simply have my functions extend to the flock, as it were."

To this Fr. André could not get himself to agree as he gazed up at the statuary of the high altar and tried to think of how to protest as his eyes lingered on the crucifix. There were some in the higher levels of the church who wanted to lessen the power of the archdeacons not extend them. He could only pray that the diocese would receive a proper bishop one day not a more powerful archdeacon. Yet the queer bell ringer had indirectly saved him of having to say anything at all.

The bells began to ring loud and clear and as crisp as the morning outside. Fr. André could not have been more relieved when the eyes of Frollo left him. He also had not realized that his mouth had been opened rather wide, and he clamped it shut in an instant thinking of how many things he would have to pray about this mass.

#

In the tower, the bells still hummed long after Quasimodo had released his hold on the rope. Their power reverberated around him causing the world to feel a slight buzz which was not at all uncomfortable to Quasimodo but overall quite warm against the chill of winter.

With ease he climbed up towards the grand bell Marie herself, and he told her as he often did, "You're ring's just too powerful to hear directly in-person otherwise I'd've rung it up here. Remember what Master says."

With deep affection he reached high up to touch the cool side of the massive bell, and he ran his fingers along the Latin words protruding out of its base. Then in a whisk like a squirrel in a tree he slipped down into his little cloister, as he considered it. It was where he spent most of his life. A little table stood in the center and a mat bed and shelves with books kindly given to him by his master. He had ever a grand view of the city of Paris before which he moved a stool over so as to look out with ease in between his work.

Taking a basket out from under the table little knowing it was the very same which had held an infant for whom he was replaced. In it now were blocks of wood also kindly given to him, and he examined each block with care until he found one which he decided best suited for the life he would give it. He smiled with satisfaction and took it to his stool along with a knife from a clean wooden box on the table which he had carved out himself. Then he sat down in his chair and hovered intently over the wood as he examined it. Grinning queerly to himself he began to whittle away at the wood in the hope of a new addition to the crowd of little wooden doll people in front of a very intricately detailed model of the majestic Notre Dame along with the neighboring buildings. Only one lone doll was not on the scene. It was a figure that resembled somewhat the old archdeacon Benjamin Frollo and stood in the light of a window of sorts. One could only imagine the symbolic positioning of him to mean that Quasimodo believed him to be in heaven.

Just below this window was a shelf which held a little box of parchment and another of pens and inks of various shapes and sizes. Some seemed to have been fashioned by Quasimodo out of personally gathered dove feathers while others were more likely gift-given but personalized with interestingly designed hand grips and florally carved butts of which Quasimodo was quite proud.

After a time in his initial whittling, Quasimodo began to look a little discouraged.

He muttered to himself, "No. No. It's not quite right."

After a moment's pause in thought, he hopped out of his chair leaving his block and tool on the table, and he hurried to the door. With the utmost care, after he had entered the cathedral, he crept as silently as a cat to the gallery again where he could catch a quick final glimpse of Fr. André, a delightful artistic subject with his round little body and rosy nose and funny way about him. To look as unassuming, approachable, and gentle as that man must be a comforting thing Quasimodo could not help but think.

Besides just being an interesting subject to carve, Quasimodo could not help but like him. He felt for his nervousness as he addressed the congregation for his first Parisian sermon. He was a man of the countryside, a place which Quasimodo could only vaguely imagine from it being described and from the faraway green on the horizon outside the city which could be seen as gleaming like a living border of emerald on clear days from the tower heights. Save in color, Quasimodo thought Fr. André resembled much his homeland of soft rolling hills, both foreign and familiar to Quasimodo at the same time in a most contradicting manner like an uncle only remembered from a half forgotten childhood.

He glanced once up at the altar with a hesitant reverence before going back. He had already said his promised prayers; though he had only prayed them in the church itself because he had been down there anyway to settle his curiosity in seeing the new priest. Usually he said them in his cloister. Any new addition to the neighborhood and Quasimodo knew about it whether by his master's telling him or not, and a person new at the cathedral was always most exciting. He tried to hold the new image in his mind to carve him well enough.

As he spoke, Fr. André paused and seemed to somehow feel Quasimodo's eyes upon him. He looked up, but by the time his eyes focused on the gallery, there was no trace of anyone having been there. Quasimodo had already disappeared. Thus with a clearing of his throat, Fr. André continued as before and thought no more about it—at least not until later when he distinctly took note in Frollo brining food up into the towers.

#

The tray of hard dark bread but soft cheese and a little to drink was set down upon the table in Quasimodo's little abode. A slice of apple was next to it for which Quasimodo took special delight as he looked up from his block of wood.

"Oh, thank you, master," he said.

"How is that book I gave you?" asked Frollo with little response to Quasimodo's gratitude. "Have you started it?"

"I'm about half way, master."

"Do you understand it well enough?"

"Uh …"

Quasimodo put down his things and came to his stool at the table a little hesitantly.

"Well, I—" said Quasimodo uneasily. "I'm trying to, master. Some of it is a little hard to picture."

"Such as?" asked Frollo.

"Well, just how such advanced mathematics can produce such architecture," said Quasimodo who did most of his work measuring by eye or simple tools and not much actual equations. "The Greeks were very clever. Such figuring is very difficult for me. I'm sorry." He failed to mention that the Greek language had never been one of his strong points either. He could read Latin as well as he could speak French, but Greek was something he had never quite grasped.

"Well, you know well enough that there would be no architecture without mathematics. Geometry and advanced geometry. Ancient temples of ancient Greece and Rome had more architectural genius than even Notre Dame, and Notre Dame itself would never have held together without such ingenuity. It is one of the things which separates mankind from the beasts."

Quasimodo lowered his head and understood.

"Perhaps if you spent a little more time on studies than whittling you would understand it better," said Frollo with a gentle hand upon the arch on Quasimodo's back, which always seemed to hunch more when Frollo was around and certainly stood out more the more Frollo silently brought attention to it.

"A little, I guess. I did use it in my carving. Measuring, I mean, but … um. What do you think, master?" He showed Frollo his latest piece in mid-transformation to the human figure.

"Keep trying," Frollo muttered before glancing up out to Paris. "At least his eyes are wavering enough. You certainly got them right."

Again Quasimodo lowered his head, for he sensed the disdain and did not realize that it was directed more towards Fr. André than his work. After setting the woodblock on the table near his food he stepped beside his master and looked out with him for a moment before looking down into the square.

"They're setting up the tents for the festival tomorrow," he remarked quietly.

Frollo's face grew dark with annoyance. Crossing his arms he resembled some leering owl from the shadows. "Yes …" he said with a voice darker than his face. "The Feast of Fools."

"It's almost as colorful as Easter," said Quasimodo warily.

"Except on Easter everyone does not act like a buffoon," said Frollo, who instead of leaving the sight of the work outside, came out into the quickly closing evening on the balcony outside.

Quasimodo bounded after him.

"Well, but it's only in fun, isn't it?" he asked hopefully. "I mean, besides the desecrating the mass thing, but we got rid of that at our noble Notre Dame. You must have a good time out there, don't you, master? I suppose I would if I went down there."

"Probably not," remarked Frollo.

Drooping more than before Quasimodo stared down at the stones below his feet and he wrung his hands together. "Well, I meant if I was …" He would not bring himself to finish. After all, Frollo knew what he meant.

"Quasimodo," said Frollo turning from the balcony back to his adopted son wallowing like a puddle behind him. "I know you are at that tender age where you are no longer a child, and you are feeling restless. But you are going to have to let it go. It will pass, _mon garçon_. Adolescence always does."

Quasimodo nodded somberly, eyes still on the stone floor, and he shivered a little in a chill breeze.

"Besides," said Frollo almost lightly now as he again patted that awkward lump of bone behind Quasimodo's head, "if you remember, it was you who decided not to come out with me anymore among the people after the way they stared and mocked. It was only for you that you don't. Unless you've changed you mind …"

Quasimodo shook his head. "No, master, I want to stay up here where I belong. If it wasn't for you I wouldn't have the safe haven I have now. I don't belong with them for more reasons than one."

At last he dared to raise his eyes to his master again, and his master returned him with a look that was as kind as the master's face ever became; though Quasimodo never took it personally. It was just Frollo's personality, after all, to have a cold exterior. Inside, Quasimodo knew, Frollo cared very much.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," said Frollo now simply resting his hand upon the hump as one may rest one's hand upon a shelf or table. "Just eat your supper, and continue with your studies and your carving of Fr. André . It isn't bad, really."

"Thank you, master," said Quasimodo feeling somewhat encouraged; a small smile appeared on his face.

He followed his master back into the tower, and Frollo left him to eat. For a few moments Quasimodo stood in the middle of the floor rather blankly. It may have seemed to some that he was deep in thought about something, but whether or not this is true he had been out of it, staring so wide-eyed at some naked beam, that he forgot entirely what it had been when he woke to himself again. With a heavy sigh he picked up his plate and his drink and took his food with him up to the bells.

Slowly eating as though every chew were an effort he remained rather motionless otherwise and continued to stare into space until he had finished even the apple slice without nearly as much luster as he had imagined when he had first laid eyes upon it.

"I try not to feel bad about it, Marie," he told the bell. "I try not to, but I can't help it."

He sighed heavily and held his hands between his knees with a little more life to his movements than while eating, and he rocked his folded hands between those crooked knees. As though someone was truly listening, he felt he could open up again from the shell that had encased him on the balcony.

"All my life I've been nothing. I'm not even a pagan. I'm a gargoyle or a grotesque. And what do they do?" He waited as though for an answer, but he ended in answering for himself, "Scare everyone away including demons. I'm so hideous I scare them away too, I bet. I was the one who first brought up not going outside anymore when I used to go out with Master when I was little. I didn't want people to stare at me anymore. I still remember the horror and disgust and hatred I saw in those faces we would pass. That's why Master forbade me to go out anymore, because it pained me so much to do so even if I did like seeing people up close. It was not worth it to only watch them turn around and see a revolting monster behind them. For the sake of the people. For the sake of myself. One of my only consolations is your beautiful song every day. You mean so much to me, Big Marie, and all your little sisters. You don't have to see how ugly I am, for which I am so grateful. To you I'm just a strong pair of arms that helps you to sing …"


	5. Chapter 5

JMJ

FIVE

It was early in the morning when Quasimodo was aroused by the sound of the festivities outside. He held his book away from the window and huddled in a corner behind his table, but no matter how hard he tried to concentrate he could not block out the images he knew to be taking place outside. The smell of food wafted in, the sounds of music and the early laughter of the day was the same way. Cheering would follow soon; before long the festival would be in full swing. If he closed his eyes he could only see the colors and the dancing and the plays all the more clearly. If he held his ears the music only sounded all that more enticing and the laughter all the more innocent and the shouts seemed to be calling for him to join in.

At last he tried to hide under the steps near the door where Frollo came in, but this only caused him to abandon trying to keep to his studies altogether. Rising to his feet he set his book upon a shelf and made his way out onto the walkway between the two towers of the cathedral. He positioned himself in a spot where he could see out with ease but be unseen even if someone were to look up in his direction.

It was all just as Quasimodo knew it would be. The tents, the platforms, the shows, the dancing, the swirls of color all from a bird's eye view. The smells of food rose up on that chill morning with the warmth of the fires upon which they were cooked. Fire and torches were everywhere to light up the dreary weather and to warm everyone in the square. There were also colorful wagons which would be in the greatest number upon the Feast of Fools. It was today upon which the gypsies' forms of entertainment were the most accepted and desired as all things considered inappropriate would be hailed as glorious today.

Leaning over the side of a cold stone rail, Quasimodo sighed with longing. He rested his head in his arms and closed his eyes in a wistful sort of way.

"Sure looks like fun down there," said a voice suddenly, but though Quasimodo opened his eyes again he was not perturbed.

It was only a grotesque perched neatly on the side of the balcony behind which he hid. A forlorn, sighing and wretched creature, it rested its head in its hands upheld by its elbows against the stone rail. Leaning next to it, Quasimodo felt that he and it were very much the same and certainly shared a similar mood anyway. He was one of them, after all, and he knew them all by name. This one was Reverie.

Usually Quasimodo would answer such a comment, but he had not the heart to speak. He only sighed a second time and closed his eyes again.

"Too bad you trapped yourself up here," muttered a second voice from a broad-chested creature with a beak and birdlike claws but a body that was almost as if stolen from a fat snake's and wings as though stolen from a very tiny dragon, for they were more like fish fins. It was known as Basilisk, not always the most amiable of the lot. "What a wimp you are."

"He has good reason to be shy," said a third grotesque, a gryphon with an open mouth and sad eyes like a mournful dog's. Although it was usually softly spoken, it was known to Quasimodo as Howler.

"He's ignoring you," muttered a fourth nearby creature, a true gargoyle just beneath the balcony, with a ragged empty face like a mummified monkey's skull and a long neck with no limbs or apparent body unless it was hidden within the cathedral's facade. After storms it spouted out water from the bowels of its innards. The gargoyles were harder to name as they were usually very much alike, but because of its location Quasimodo had come to call it the North Lookout, or simply Nord.

Basilisk snorted. "No, he just has nothing to say because he knows it's true."

"Oh," sighed Reverie as though reciting a poem. "We go through this every time there's a festival of late. Mardi Gras, Easter, Le fête des Toussant, Yuletide, all manner of saint days in between … Before we were just content to watch, but now … Oh, sixteen is such a difficult age for a wallflower. Why don't you just go down for a peak and get it out of your system, you miserable creature."

"We're tired to seeing you mope," Basilisk agreed.

A fifth stone beast further on along the balcony leered grimly in their directly, shifted a little, as much a grotesque could from its base, and seemed to be disturbed in his own watchfulness of the events. It did not speak much, and Quasimodo never pressed it. It was known as Stalker, and was another gryphon-like grotesque.

Quasimodo shrugged. "That's what _you_ all do is lean over the tower and mope," he pointed out.

"We can't help it if we're chiseled that way," said Howler quietly.

"Not like you," sighed Reverie. "You can change your face at will."

"But he can't," said Nord darkly but still sympathetically in a way. "That's the problem, isn't it?"

"He can hide it," suggested Howler timidly.

"How can he?" demanded Basilisk.

"Come on, Quasimodo," sighed Reverie leaning confidentially towards the boy. "Even your master's got to see you need to have some recreation once in a while. You work hard."

" _Ora et labora_ ," laughed Nord. "Play and work."

"Don't you mean 'pray and work'?" asked Quasimodo lightly.

"Whatever," chuckled Nord rather sinisterly. "What he doesn't know can't hurt him is basically what I mean."

"You mean deceive him?" gasped Quasimodo straightening a bit from the ledge. "Oh, no. I could never do that."

"What do you mean?" demanded Basilisk. "You deceive him all the time. You don't tell him how much you've been actually concentrating on that Greek garbage."

"I'm not lying to him, I just get startled and I … I don't want him to be angry with me," said Quasimodo picking at some dirt under his thumbnail. "I never mean to deceive him."

"Lying, self defense, deception, it's all the same thing with its proper place," retorted Basilisk. "And why not? It wouldn't be for very long. Coward."

"Don't listen to Basilisk," sighed Reverie making a face and shaking its head. "A bitter old thing is Basilisk. You're a gentle, honest sort of person. We understand, but you cannot deny that it is what you want."

Nord chuckled again. "Otherwise we wouldn't be saying it."

"One small taste of life would be good for you, Quasimodo, especially on a day like today when everything is backwards," sighed Reverie. "Just think of it, you poor creature. Even a horrible, unwanted thing would be loved and admired today, and you're not nearly as horrible as you think you are."

"Looks fun, smells fun, tastes fun," said Nord drooling now and licking its chops.

"And there's so many people down there," said Howler sadly and quietly.

" _Pfft_ , so many people how could they notice one little guy in a hood?" snorted Basilisk. "Hey! Even I could get away with sneaking around down there in a hood. I mean most of 'em are probably drunk by now anyway."

"This early?" gasped Nord in surprise. He was not the brightest among them. The grotesques tended to be smarter than the gargoyles as a whole.

"Oh, they would notice me," Quasimodo assured them. "They always notice me. Even Fr. André noticed me yesterday in the gallery."

"Well, yeah, sneaking around like that, who wouldn't?" Basilisk retorted.

"He's not going down," mourned Howler. "Our efforts are useless."

"Fine," sniffed Basilisk, "but he's gunna regret it like he always does, and then he'll whine to us, and we get enough of that with you, Howler and Reverie. That's the last thing I need is another guy moaning. What's he complaining about if he can actually move about freely unlike us! If I could climb over rooftops like him I would've left a long time ago, you know?"

"You _do_ look more normal than we do," said Reverie kindly, and blocking Quasimodo's view of Basilisk who seemed liable to go on complaining for some time.

"Oh, forget him, Reverie," remarked Nord. "Leave him alone in his own denial—what I wouldn't give for a quiche!" He paused and glanced up at Quasimodo with those empty eye sockets. " _Aww_ , couldn't you go down and at least get me a quiche, Quasimodo?"

"It would do you no good, Nord," said Quasimodo. "I'm afraid you can't eat."

"But _you_ can," said Reverie. "And how you're denied such treats as are bestowed down there."

"Nord said it," said Basilisk after spitting at Reverie and causing it to slink back with annoyance. "This kid's in denial. He thinks he's a statue for crying out loud!"

"I'm not in denial," Quasimodo said in a voice which sounded too sad to be confident even if firm.

"Well," said Reverie after blocking Quasimodo's view of Basilisk again. "You are in denial about one thing, Quasimodo."

Quasimodo lifted his head and looked at Reverie in a most soulful manner as he studied its contemplative face.

"You're in denial," Reverie began kindly, "that—"

"That those people down there deserve a break more than you," Nord cut in.

Reverie looked rather annoyed, but Quasimodo was no longer listening. Their voices faded out and the stones resumed their complete solidity as Quasimodo looked down once more at the festival below. Then he whisked away back into the tower.

Picking up his book he sat down in his chair again and began to read with determination, but the words only blurred into the reimagining of the flickering firelight outside inviting and bright and warm. He shivered and huddled up in a blanket against the cold, but naturally he felt only colder because of how lost he felt. He knew that the words which the gargoyles and grotesques spoke were his own thoughts. They would not have spoken them if this had not been so, and this knowledge made him feel guilty as though he had already committed a crime against his master, but even with that thought he slammed the book shut.

Without allowing himself time to reconsider what he was about to do, he snatched his hood from a hook.

Not far away was the rope to Big Marie, and he stopped suddenly as though from a gentle warning that something bad may happen if he went down and more than merely being punished by Frollo. After all, Quasimodo knew nothing of going about outside by himself and there were so many things that could go wrong for an inexperienced person in a city like Paris even with the best intentions.

"Yes, I know, Marie, that it's a bad idea, but just this once," he told her. "It's just the Feast of Fools. I … I just want to see! It'll drive me crazy if I don't! Just this once and I'll be satisfied for the rest of my life!"

#

Thus did Quasimodo slip out of the cathedral. He knew the magnificent structure better than perhaps the architects themselves had, and he certainly knew how to maneuver through it better than anyone alive now could. His skill in getting down and out onto the ground without anyone seeing would have given a monkey some lessons, but once on solid ground, shoes in the gravel, he suddenly felt quite out of his element. It had been years since he last stepped onto the grounds of Notre Dame, and it felt a little surreal.

He peered around a corner, and after a pause in which he adjusted his hood and smelled the air like a curious field mouse, he scurried into the crowd where he hoped he would disappear as the his advisers had suggested. He felt as though he had just been swallowed up into a whirlwind of stained glass or a rainbow that had fallen into a great river that flooded the square, and he could barely perceive one object from the next around the costumes and drapery. The music was as a rainbow for the ear, the smells a rainbow for the nose. He felt almost as if he would be swept off into the wind and carried away lost for eternity in wonderment, but at last he narrowed in upon an object of interest which he always wanted to see up close.

A puppet act was showing starring the great Pierrot and his notorious partner at their bickering again, but it was quite new to Quasimodo who, peaking between other spectators, caught a glimpse of the squeaky-voiced pair. He was quite impressed and wished he had access to such colorful cloth to make clothing for his own wooden figures, but mostly he just watched as happily as a child, and although he did not shriek with laughter as the little ones in the front, he was quite delighted. Perhaps more delighted by the children in some ways than the puppets. He had never seen the backs of so many children up so close before.

However he was not able to watch the show and audience for long, for it was just then that someone already took notice in Quasimodo. It was as startling to the poor boy as the appearance of a phantom as suddenly an old rusted cup was thrust out into his face almost striking him in the nose, and with a small cry Quasimodo caught himself from falling backwards.

"Charity!" cried a shrill voice which carried more theatrical luster than the people behind the puppet show stage. "I beg charity!" He pawed just a touch at the hem of Quasimodo's soft hood. "I beg of you most humbly, _monsieur_!"

Unable to recollect himself well, Quasimodo stared back at the figure who owned the rusted mug without a thought as to how to respond. His mind was too blank to get out that he had no money with him to give to anyone, for never had he been faced with such a pitiable and yet dynamic figure as the one which stood before him.

His hair and beard were gray and his brows scraggly. His face drew long and a tad gaunt but carried few wrinkles. Nothing but a thin and raggedy shroud of a robe covered him against the chill of January and a miserable hat that looked as if it had already once been buried with the dead. Stooped over in a queer way, he was still not in any way hunched in comparison with Quasimodo's. He would have been tall had he been standing straight up but very thin-boned. A sharp falcon nose adorned his face which might have looked quite proud on him if he did not look so miserable. His dark-complexioned face was weary, forsaken. His lips were dry and cracked. Rich brown eyes stared out straight ahead with longing, and with one hand carrying his cup and the other a walking stick, he seemed overall a man who had once carried himself with dignity and confidence and had suddenly been brought very low.

Here, Quasimodo realized too that this was a beggar he had seen before from the tower. How much more vivid a character was he than he had appeared from a bird's eye view where Quasimodo had envisioned him an older man than he looked in person. From what he had gathered even from the tower Quasimodo had guessed correctly that despite his shabby appearance, the beggar carried with him more than poverty. There was a queer sense of mystery about him that Quasimodo could not quite put his finger on.

As the beggar spoke he did not seem to see Quasimodo, but stared off as though he could see nothing at all. The poor man must have been blind also, Quasimodo realized, and at once his heart went out to him even if he was still afraid to speak with him and unsure still how to tell him that he could give him nothing, except maybe the cloak on his back, slice it, perhaps, as St. Martin had for one poor beggar.

No, no! He couldn't do that either. What would his master say if he discovered it missing or torn?

"Have pity on a man," said the beggar, "with no means to support his family."

In the end, Quasimodo's only solution was to back away, especially since the old man was not directly addressing him anymore but another man walking by.

"Fifteen children," the man pleaded. "A sick wife! And I unable to work to support them!"

Quasimodo backed away all the more as he continued to watch the unusual person. His strong personality seemed still to affect the meek little creature from the tower, and he was locked under his spell even as the man continued on along the people to beg for charity.

He was so intent upon backing away awkwardly from a man who was not pursuing him that he did not look where he was going. Thus it should have come as no surprise that Quasimodo would come into a collision with somebody else in such a busy street.

" _Ack_!" he cried simultaneously with the person he ran into, and all other thought could not be found as he stared upon a most different sort of individual from the one he had met first.

For a second or so he stood gaping at the angelic grace of the dark haired creature dressed in a gorgeous tapestry of the most brilliant color. The earrings and bracelets which adorned her were like twinkling fairy dust which enhanced the central figure of such a soft and delicately molded face and a pair of eyes like the eyes of a dove. Quasimodo felt as though he would faint until she spoke with the clarity of tinkling bells.

"Excuse me!" she gasped looking rather shocked to see such a person as Quasimodo, and he felt her initial disgust.

"Oh! Uh!" stammered Quasimodo, and not wanting to appear rude he managed at least, "I'm so sorry! I—"

But he couldn't continue.

Quasimodo fled.

The girl no older than Quasimodo looked on curiously for a moment, but she could not be held up long. She was being called to the platform. It was her turn up.


	6. Chapter 6

JMJ

SIX

At the sound of music commencing for the dancer, Quasimodo slowed down and came to a stop. Turning gradually he peered out from under his hood pulled as far over his face as it could go and still allow him to see if he lifted his head high enough. The girl he had run into was now on the stage. The music was for her, he realized. She was one of the gypsy dancers he had seen before from his tower. It was strange to think that he might have seen this very girl at one time or other and never realized her true beauty from so high a height.

Despite himself he crept back towards her as her dance began. He was drawn to the music, to the brilliant colors of her clothing and the glinting of her earrings, but mostly he was drawn to the girl's captivating smile. To Quasimodo it felt as genuine as the smile from a saint, especially when once she seemed to be smiling at him. At least for a split second until he reminded himself that she could not be smiling at him. She had already seen what a horrible freak he was up close and there were so many other smiling faces directed back to her that he knew she could be smiling at any one of them.

He too smiled a little anyway, but it was lost to anyone for he lowered his head and pulled his hood even though it would go no further. With a heavy sigh, he gathered himself again. He had a thought to back to the towers right then, but as he lifted his head to look once more upon the graceful beauty as light as a bird on her little bare feet, he took note in one person in particular who was not smiling. This person was not the only one who looked displeased for some reason, but the glower and intense stare of this certain person was one that Quasimodo knew only too well.

"Master …" he breathed, and he gulped.

Frollo was a distance from Quasimodo, and perhaps in the crowd he would not have been able to pick him out, but Quasimodo doubted that. If he had been able to pick out Frollo then Frollo would be even more likely to pick out him if he happened to look. Right now all his attention was on the movements of the girl as though he was a great looming owl like a roc ready to pounce upon a graceful little deer. But Quasimodo did not notice this so much. All he saw was that Frollo already looked angry. Perhaps he already knew Quasimodo was out and had gone to look for him.

Backing away again with the utmost care, Quasimodo made to slip behind the crowd and make his way back to the cathedral from a side where Frollo would not see him, but it was too late for that.

"There!" shouted a voice as Quasimodo made it a safe enough distance away from the archdeacon.

Quasimodo jumped. Surely they were speaking of him. Indeed they were, but their grins did not make sense as Quasimodo spun around to face a crowd of people behind another street.

"Thank you for volunteering! You're perfect!" the same man exclaimed eagerly.

"'P—perfect!?'" gasped Quasimodo in utter disbelief who had never heard such a word used for him.

"Who better for the pope of fools!" another man exclaimed.

A woman at his elbow heartily agreed.

"We can't have a real procession without proper authority!" laughed the first man.

"No, hardly!" laughed the second.

And without knowing what was happening entirely, Quasimodo found himself being dragged along as into some nightmare. Thrust upon a throne in false gold paint and a satin cushion, he could only stare with huge eyes as his kidnappers threw off his hood and placed a type of cap on his head. A scepter, really a shepherd's staff, was shoved into one of his hands, and a crimson cloak was placed over his first cloak.

"How befitting!" exclaimed another woman from the crowd, "that the Hunchback of Notre Dame be our lord and master on such a day!"

"Your Excellency!" exclaimed a fourth man. "You're flock awaits you!"

"Do you have some words of wisdom before we begin?" asked yet another man with a bow after kissing Quasimodo's new cloak.

Quasimodo gulped and wondered if these people were drunk. He could not find a voice despite renewed urgings and pleadings from the crowd.

At last Quasimodo finally found a crack of a voice enough to say, "What are we doing?"

Everyone gasped. "Ah, such wisdom!" "Such power over the French language!" "Yes, where are we the people of France and the people of God going!?" "What does the future have in store for her?" "The people of this nation need to answer such a question!" "For France, the first daughter of the church! Where is she going?" "We could not have picked a better to lead us through these difficult times of passing through plague and poverty!"

Needless to say, nobody answered the boy's question. After some time and some homage, he was suddenly lurched forward by a pair of white horses upon his parade float cart and away into the streets of Paris in the most maddening procession of the deepest bowels of the innermost psyche where dreams are the most insane. All Quasimodo could do was to clutch his staff with one hand and with the other clutch the side of his throne as he inwardly bewailed his forced service.

#

In need of some fresh air, Fr. André stepped out onto the steps of Notre Dame. He had absolutely no interested in seeing the festivities. Going about his day as though he had forgotten that it had existed, he seemed to neither hear nor see what was going on around him. He was still only thankful that no one fought him for a sacrilegious ceremony inside the cathedral, which was said to have been tried more than once before his coming and was certainly prevalent at other churches in Paris and in France in general. However he could not ignore that no more than a moment after he stepped out the portal door, he saw the archdeacon coming towards him from the square.

Fr. André had last seen him quite occupied inside over a book, but here he was as if he had spirited out somewhere in Paris and had come a long way to get back to Notre Dame. He was going to walk out to meet him. The archdeacon was apparently just as surprised, if not more so, to see Fr. André on the front steps. Yet Fr. André had not taken the last step to the street when a ragged and miserable hand stretched out imploringly towards Fr. André with a rusted metal cup.

"Would you not have pity, dear abbé, on a poor blind man at the steps of the house of Him who cured the blind and lame and the lepers?" said a voice like a strained ballad on a dry throat. "For my family, I pray you."

Of course, Fr. André could not refuse the poor man without only eyes to support the rest of his body, which would surely go into as much decay as his clothes if no one took pity on his plight. He went back inside in a moment and brought him some charity money for his cup and a drink from a cup he had been drinking from recently himself.

"Oh, _merci, merci_ , abbé!" said the gray beggar with tears forming in his eyes as he took the cup and drank greedily.

It was here that Frollo arrived, and the beggar glanced back at him out of the corner of his eyes in a queer sort of way from under his broad shaggy hat and dirty gray hair. Frollo glanced back with a little disdain but was quite unperturbed as he watched the beggar slink away with his gain.

"Your … Your honor," said Fr. André unused to the title; he straightened involuntarily in the presence of the archdeacon judge.

"What brings you out here?" asked Frollo calmly, but there was a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Excuse me, your honor," said Fr. André with a sort of bow of his head. "I was just getting some air."

"And what do you think?" Frollo asked with a strange half smile that faded quickly.

"Think?"

"Of the vibrant feast."

"Ah!" said Fr. André feeling a tad uncomfortable. "I think … well. Paris is much different from where I used to serve. It's so …"

"Filled with lunatics?" Frollo offered.

"Well, I was only thinking that the Feast of Fools seemed to be rather on an excessive level here," said Fr. André. "I've been told things worse than what I see now, but hopefully those are only rumors. Food, drink, and children's games and puppet shows are harmless enough."

"Scantily clad women dancing?"

"Is that true?" asked Fr. André who could not see the dancers from this side of the cathedral.

"Only too true," said Frollo. "Married men drooling over little girls even if most of the rest of what can openly be seen seems harmless enough. I've seen it all: cheating people out of their money, mocking all authority, dressing obscenely, partaking in pagan rituals, and all in the name of being opposite. That's the Feast of Fools, and that's only in the daylight hours."

"Doesn't anyone try to do something about the abuses?"

"You might as well get used to it," said Frollo. "Picking people's pockets, you know, is another way of celebrating the day …"

"Oh, no!" gasped Fr. André instantly understanding Frollo's meaning. "That poor beggar couldn't've been—"

"There's nothing to be done about Paris," Frollo interrupted darkly. "And there's nothing to be done about the Feast of Fools. Some churches in Paris can barely seem to get rid of the Feast of the Boy Bishop."

Fr. André hesitated. "But isn't respect for our Lord discussed at Mass to these poor souls who can't possibly be purposely trying to dishonor their faith in Christ's …?"

Frollo was already departing, passing him in through the portal, but that was not what caused Fr. André to stop speaking.

"Wait," said Fr. André more to himself, but the confusion in his voice caused Frollo to stop before he allowed the door to close upon him.

"What is it?" asked Frollo.

"Isn't that your … uh, I mean, isn't that Quasimodo in that—eh, procession?"

Spinning around like a top, Frollo looked and saw to his utter surprise the same thing that Fr. André saw. In the main float on a lofty throne sat none other than the Hunchback of Notre Dame, miter on his head and staff in his hand.

Frollo's mouth clamped shut in disbelief, and he pushed past Fr. André.

As for Quasimodo, until he saw his master, he was growing somewhat accustomed to the situation. Actually, he was beginning to feel rather pleased with himself. After all, it was the first time in his life he had seen so many people happy to see him. It was overwhelming, certainly, but it was not admittedly a cause of grief to have people kiss the hem of his cloak and bow their heads before him. He was surprised too that many people actually knew who he was, and it surprised him that they did not seem to think of him as a monster at all. Perhaps he had misjudged the people, or he had misjudged himself. Either way he allowed himself to smile, and he waved his free hand to people that called out to him— even if only meekly.

But when he saw Frollo there was no more comfort in the throne than a bed of nails. Slipping away as quick as a rabbit he dashed into the crowd.

Naturally, the people in the procession were quite confused as to his behavior, but no one had time to pursue him as the archdeacon stood in front of the procession and halted it with one broad movement of his strong hand.

"You will not bring this parade of mockery into the presence of Notre Dame," said the archdeacon with a voice like thunder, and he went on to say that the whole procedure was completely inappropriate conduct even on the Feast of Fools.

When some tried to protest that they had not any intention of bringing the procession into the cathedral, the archdeacon simply thrust out his hand a second time as indication that he would not argue about it before he moved on. Then he pursued Quasimodo. He left the partiers rather in a funk, but they would not let the end of the procession ruin the rest of the day at least as they aimed to pick up quickly to enjoy what they had missed from the rest of the festivities.

Quasimodo meanwhile was still racing away from Notre Dame. Maybe Frollo had not seen him in the procession after all and he could still slip into the towers before Frollo knew of his absence there. But as jumpy as he was and still moving quickly as he looked over his shoulder back at Notre Dame, he slammed right into someone's small stand and knocked most of the fruit onto the ground.

"Hey! Watch it!" snapped the man who owned the stand. "You ugly donkey, look what you've done!"

"I—I'm sorry," Quasimodo tried to beg wringing his hands and bowing his head. "I—!"

But he could not stay to help pick up.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Frollo coming his way.

He had seen Quasimodo. There was no hope for it now.

Still he fled as though by instinct. Guards took notice then as he was certainly running suspiciously and from the honorable Frollo. Seeing them, Quasimodo ducked again into a mass of crowd. There was no place to hide or to go until he saw a gypsy tent. Instantly he ducked inside.

Panting and gasping for breath with a heart pounding right into his throat he closed his eyes and tried to think straight through his dizzying thoughts.

"I knew this was a bad idea," he wheezed. "I knew this was—"

And it grew only worse as his words were interrupted by a startled scream.

Quasimodo turned and to his horror he found that he was not just in a tent but what was a place to dress. It was the girl from the stage he saw before him, and though she was almost finished with the strings to her normal dress never before had he felt so terrible about anything he had done. A monster as himself coming in upon such a delicate situation as this! He might have died from the experience right then as she fell over a little in her surprise.

"I'm sorry!" Quasimodo tried to explain. "I'm sorry! I didn't know! I—!"

"No! Just get out!" exclaimed the girl as she finished the last button of her boot and got to her feet in a sweeping motion.

The flap opened roughly.

"What's going on here!?" a very princely man demanded, and his bright green eyes narrowed instantly upon the bell ringer. " _You_!"

Quasimodo was frozen to the core. His heart stopped as his eyes shifted up to the knight. His nightmare had grown from strange to terrible, and more than anything he wished he had never left the tower.

The man, Phoebus by name, released Quasimodo from his glare in time to turn around to another knightly man named Pierre Giroux who was followed by some of Frollo's old guards.

This was enough to release Quasimodo from his spell, and he again made to dash away. It was far too late now, however. Phoebus did not even have to tell Pierre to chase after him. Although Quasimodo managed to get out of the tent he was grabbed in a moment by two guards and Pierre.

"Wait!" said the girl suddenly as she too was freed from her stupor. Running to Phoebus she tried to say, "I don't think—"

With the strength of a mule Quasimodo suddenly kicked Pierre right in the stomach. He fell back into the tent and the girl backed away involuntarily. Not long would she have stood back before she would have attempted to speak out again, but it was at that moment that another gypsy pulled her away from the scene. There were too many guards around for comfort.

And it took about four guards to hold the struggling Quasimodo down onto the ground. Though he screamed and begged, his fighting them only made it worse until at last Quasimodo gave in and resisted no more. He did not see Frollo watching from further back in the middle of the square, nor did he know of his disgusted leer as he watched with no attempt to stop what was happening.

"Your honor!" exclaimed Fr. André running to Frollo's side after Quasimodo was taken away. "What's going on?! What are they doing?!"

"Nothing that concerns you," said Frollo pulling Fr. André back with him to the cathedral. "It's all being taken care of."

"But shouldn't my congregation concern me?" Fr. André demanded.

"It's not a member of your congregation, abbé."


	7. Chapter 7

JMJ

SEVEN

The caravan was packed to leave, for the gypsies had stayed long into the night. It was a most profitable day for them on the Feast of Fools, for it was the one day upon which their entertainment was the most appreciated. It was the one day upon which they were actually sought after. They had only just finished packing now in the grim early morning, and most of the gypsies were already inside their wagons and starting off.

However there was one girl among them no older than sixteen, who whether or not she had a wagon to invite her in, was by herself as she often was. As she stood on the edge of the caravan she found herself turning her head towards the square of Notre Dame. She could not see anything from where she stood, but the echoes of shouting and a great commotion could be heard coming from there.

A look of deep sadness covered her features, and without telling a soul, she slipped away as a stray cat might about her own business. No one made to stop her. As she came to the square she was surprised to see how many people were crowding around. Some of them were gypsies, so she was not the only one in the crowd to come see even if for a different reason. Most of the spectators however were the culturally French, but those who were present whether of Gypsy, Christian, or of some other origin, for the most part watched with a disturbing interest as the strange prisoner was dragged forward in a fountain of chains to a block where he was serve his sentence.

The girl stood back a pace and gasped. She knew for what reason the boy from the tower was being punished, and she knew that the queer person as ugly and gruesome as he appeared had been as scared to see her in the tent as she had been of him. Perhaps more so.

The crime of an attempt of adultery or kidnapping was charged to the prisoner's name aside from resisting authority. She knew the first crime to be false, and for the second who could blame him? The injustice of the scene culminating in her mind made her feel ill, but she would not leave. In dismay, the girl continued to watch as the guard brought out a whip.

She watched the terror in the prisoner's eyes grow from dull confused misery to true horror, and they widened to their full capacity. He squeezed his eyes shut for the coming pain after they wrenched off his cloak and tunic as one would pull a wrap from a slab of meat.

"No …" she breathed and winced against the pain at the crack of that strong whip against tender naked flesh.

#

In the arcade Fr. André too watched the revolting display in front of the House of God, and he could not believe what he was seeing.

A public whipping!

He hardly knew that Frollo had approached save that he felt a sudden unexplainable chill run up his spine which caused him to turn to his side to see the archdeacon standing there.

"Your honor, shouldn't we do something about this?" asked Fr. André miserably and he clutched the sleeves of his robe as he heard the sound of the whip crack and the cry of the boy down below.

"I can't interfere with the law," muttered Frollo as still as stone.

"But he can't have done what they say he's done, especially if he is only a halfwit as you said," cried Fr. André imploringly. "Didn't you defend him at the … 'trial'? It can't have been much of one …" He paused. "And even if he did commit a crime! This is obscene! Please! How is whipping and publicly humiliating a sinner going to make him want to repent? All these people watching …" He shuddered. "Jeering. _Cheering_! It's the Coliseum syndrome and at least a near occasion of sin if not sin of the gravest sort! It's … it's …"

"It's not the quiet little village of little simple farmers," retorted Frollo calmly as he gazed on upon the square as though gazing into a fire or the reflection of light dancing upon the sea, "this is Paris. I told you there was nothing to be done about Paris, and sometimes, no, there is no other way to deal with a sinner than public penance."

"But this might kill—"

Roughly Frollo turned to André, and the little man felt as though he would melt into the floor on the spot.

"Don't you think," said Frollo through clenched teeth, "that if I could do something I would? He's lived with me as my son all sixteen years of his life. Do you think I don't care about his welfare? There's nothing to be done, especially now! They'll release him in an hour of chains with whipping on and off with long pauses in between. They're doing that much because he is my son, and because the victim of the crime is not powerful enough to press for further punishment. It was only a gypsy girl."

"I'm sorry, your honor."

Fr. André bowed his head now hidden within his hood. He could not help but think of the ancient pagans scourging the early followers of Christ and still may be doing in pagan countries. He could not help but be reminded of the Scourging of Our Lord at the Pillar. Yet, here a civilized Christian nation as France was whipping someone who could not have deserved it. Christian men had no right to whip and torture even a hardened sinner. Lock them up or banish them, yes, so they would do no harm to others, but torture was only the work of the devil. To torture someone who had the mind of a child and who was hardly capable of purposely offending the law, that was a crime, which without repentance, would scream to God for vengeance.

As he felt Frollo stepping closer to the ledge at his side, Fr. André could not help further still the thought of the Pharisees and elders of the Jews looking on and doing nothing to stop the tragedy against an innocent Man — not only doing nothing, in fact, but feeling satisfaction to know that the Innocent was finally being taken from their sight. Though he himself felt nothing but nausea and horror to see this scene nor was he saying that he felt the poor boy to be a saint, he tried to suppress the uncharitable thought that he could sense some form of that same angry satisfaction in Frollo watching his adopted child be tortured as the pagan fathers of the early Christians watched their children be slaughtered before their eyes when they would not sacrifice to the demons in the guise of gods, or as even the Pharisees themselves looking up upon the Cross.

He tried to shake the thought out of his mind as he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

Frollo had said that he could have done nothing to intervene. The archdeacon deserved the benefit of the doubt, for the alternative was far too vile to be true.

There was a short pause as Frollo examined the little priest with so much turmoil in his head.

"Come," he said coolly then. "Inside with me."

Fr. André followed miserably behind Frollo, but very slowly and he looked back once more at the wailing cries from the little bell ringer.

"Master! _Master_! Please, master! Save me!"

He glanced again up at Frollo, and he could not bring himself to step any further. He bowed his head again and prayed that such madness as this would cease from the face of the earth.

#

Dropping his head so heavy and limp, Quasimodo could no longer bring himself to look up towards the cathedral in the hope that his master would appear to save him. His hope was lost and the pain numbing to the core. The crowd still watched but their interest seemed to have dwindled as their numbers had been greatly reduced. But Quasimodo could no longer see them. He hardly could tell that the whipping had stopped for the hand that held the whip to take a rest and wipe the brow of the head attached.

The administer of the punishment stood back and had a drink as he sat down upon a stool, but Quasimodo, the prisoner was still in chains so numerous and so heavy that even they had provided some protection from some of the blows. What had struck him barebacked had been more than enough to bear however.

"I'm sorry, master …" he choked and he spit out what he thought was mucus but was a gob of blood. "… Forgive me … master …"

Then after a time he perceived again the murmuring crowd penetrating his mind. He could hear some say how revolting a creature he was now that all could see him uncovered as he truly was out of human apparel. What a beast he was.

Tears had already rung him dry, but a few more globs managed to trickle down his cheeks.

Then he heard footsteps in front of him.

In fright, he feared that whipping would continue, but as he lifted his head he saw not a guard dressed in black, but an image as wonderful as the angel that freed St. Peter from prison. She looked more beautiful in her white blouse and Gypsy skirt than she could have ever hoped to be beautiful in her dancing dress. The dirt on her face only enhanced her genuineness. The care in her eyes held his eyes in place upon hers. As a spirit wreathed in light she descended upon him seemingly unaware of the voices of the surprised crowd. She seemed to his weary eyes to float towards him as she fell upon her knees in front of him.

"I'm sorry," whispered the voice like tinkling bells. "I'm sorry this happened because of me. I know you didn't do it on purpose." She paused. "Here."

Quasimodo could barely remember how to breathe as he stared back. As a cup of water rose to his lips he could barely understand what a cup was or the need for water, but the cool liquid down his throat was almost as comforting as the sight of this spirit of kindness in front of him.

What had they called her at the trial?

La Esmeralda …

#

"Come on, you," growled the whipping guard as he stood up from his stool.

With a snort he began to march towards the girl.

The knight Pierre Giroux, who had been present at the public punishment and almost as disgusted as André, moved at once to stop the guard from doing anything to hinder the girl who impressed him so greatly. Her kindness for the poor bell ringer struck such a chord that the thought of any harm against her from some great a lout as that man with his whip caused a rage to build up inside of him.

But he was not given the chance to show anything.

Phoebus, his superior stopped the guard instead.

"No," he said. "Leave her alone. She should be commended."

The girl smiled a little as she turned to Phoebus from whom such words she did not expect in a scene as cruel as this one.

"Besides," Phoebus went on crossing his arms. "His punishment is practically over anyway."

Sir Giroux took this initiative instantly to say, "Release him!"

Quasimodo's chains were unlocked, and he fell into a heap on the ground. The girl tried to help him, but as she reached out for his hand, Frollo appeared.

The girl felt his eyes before she looked back to see them glaring down upon her with the intensity of some great owl beneath his cap. It was not anger she saw in his eyes, but what she did see was nothing she cared to know. It was the stare of a bird of prey upon a rodent. First she made to block his view of Quasimodo as though to protect him, but she felt quite disoriented, and could only watch as the man moved past her and helped Quasimodo to his feet.

Quasimodo himself barely responded with more than a sickening whimper as the archdeacon wrapped the boy's cloak over his shoulders and led him back into the cathedral.

La Esmeralda looked up at the tower, at the painted figures of saints and angels, but her eyes soon locked onto the lurking grotesques and gargoyles. She could think of no better comparison for that man that had just taken the poor boy back into that mysterious tower. He had been staring at her as some of those horrid creatures leered down from the heights upon the people of Paris. The only thing that seemed to hold them back from launching an assault were the angels and saints which stood in front of them, but were they good enough? Certainly they could not stop the man who had taken the poor boy away.

#

Although he could not hear the sound of thunder, in his heart Quasimodo felt the dull throb of a distant storm. In a silence that was deafening, Frollo cleaned Quasimodo's wounds, bandaged him, and gave him an old shirt to wear that did not fit him until they could replace the tunic he had lost. Then he brought him up into the tower and laid him to bed upon his mat. He pulled the blanket up to the chin, and then in a cold, stiff manner, Frollo turned away. Without a single word of parting, without so much as a nod or a shake of his head, Frollo left the tower and closed the door neither softly so as to not disturb the patient, nor banging it to show his anger. As though there were no emotion left in his heart at all, he left Quasimodo to himself.

Would that Frollo had yelled at him with all the power of a raging tempest rather than leave him in such silence! The silence hurt more than any scolding, more than another beating.

Squeezing his eyes shut Quasimodo did not bother to wipe the tears from his eyes as they rolled down his face and onto his pillow.

"Oh, Marie," he whispered. "Why didn't I listen to you …? There would have been no worse day in the Book of Hours than on the Feast of Fools for me to come out. The day of madness …"

#

The ringing bells sounded first far away, and as Quasimodo awoke from his deep and troubled slumber he only caught the end of the after-humming in consciousness as he opened his eyes. Even then he was in a fog.

"The bells …" he moaned heavily. "The bells …"

"The altar boys are taking care of the bells in your absence," said a deep familiar voice at his side.

Surprised to hear the voice of Frollo, all remnant of sleep left the boy.

"Young Timothée just rang it now," Frollo continued in a calm, quiet voice. "I myself rang them last night after you went to bed."

" _You_ , master?" asked Quasimodo with uncertainty, and he paused and looked down at his blanket. "I'm sorry, master. I'm sorry for causing so much trouble. I didn't mean …" He closed his eyes and held back a tear. "Forgive me."

Frollo sighed, but said nothing in response to that. He stood up from where he had been kneeling in front of the mat, and he turned to the table.

"I brought you something to eat and to drink. You need to keep up your strength to heal properly."

Quasimodo nodded and swallowed hard as he tried to ignore the pain enough to sit up. "Thank you, master."

Frollo made him lie back down.

"I'll bring the food to you …"

#

It was a long time before Quasimodo felt able to get out of bed, and when he did, Frollo would not allow him to ring the bells until he had healed more. Though, once Quasimodo was up and about again, as slow as it was, Frollo would not allow the altar boys to come up any longer either. He went up himself to ring the bells leaving Quasimodo feeling very worthless without his purpose in life.

"I am cold. I am nothing. I am as the stone grotesques outside my walls," he wrote taking up a piece of parchment one cold and dreary afternoon. "But in one thing I am different. I feel pain unless it is so that stone feels pain too but has no voice to say so. If we both feel pain, however, it can merit us nothing, because that is what I am. Nothing."

He looked down at what he wrote and thought how miserable and hopeless it sounded as he reread it. Such hopelessness on a once so fresh piece of paper when he had always wished to make nothing but beauty to make up for his appearance! There was no beauty in this.

Closing his eyes briefly, he lifted his head to the window where stood the wooden figure of the archdeacon, Benjamin. In the darkness in which Quasimodo sat, the figure was only a silhouette against a gray cloud mass.

"Pray for your innocence so that you remain pure and good-hearted. Pray for the gift of understanding, for wisdom and discernment. Pray that you never forget about the temple inside of you," Quasimodo repeated quietly to himself, and shook his head.

Taking up another sheet of paper he began to write again.

"A hope for being whole,

For that elusive soul …"

Again he shook his head and dropped it into his arms upon the table.

"Ave Maria, gratia plena,

Dominus tecum.

Benedicta tu in mulieribus,

et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,

ora pro nobis peccatoribus,

nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen …"

He whispered the prayer of his promise into the wood of the table, and continued to whisper the rest.


	8. Chapter 8

JMJ

EIGHT

Phoebus smiled down upon La Esmeralda from his lofty white horse. She was dancing behind a cracked bowl in which she hoped people would throw money. A small boy dressed in little more than rags sat down near at hand playing upon a flute. One person threw down a coin into the bowl, but he did not stay to watch. This left only Phoebus as the audience.

The girl looked up and smiled at the knight, and as she continued to dance without breaking the flow of her movements, she nodded towards the bowl at hand as to say, "If you want to continue watching me, you need to support my livelihood."

Descending from his horse then with a smile broadening, Phoebus dropped more than one glistening coin into her bowl. The boy almost stopped playing to see the amount as his eyes grew wide as saucers.

"When you're done, most charming Esmeralda," said the knight gallantly. "Meet me in the square of Notre Dame."

The girl's face turned a tad wry, but it was only a show that she had learned to make people think she had more confidence and wisdom than she did. It appeared on her as an unconscious form of self-preservation. Inside she knew that the knight was honest. Knights usually were. They were not like guards or captains. They rode nobly upon clean horses and defended people from danger. They had only come to Paris recently in between a crusade, and though she knew very little of the meaning of their battles she knew it was to defend their way of life against those who once conquered Spain. That was a noble thing, she thought, for the moors had no love for Christians or Gypsies alike.

So after her dancing, she told the boy to go back to the caravan with his share of the money they had earned and then she went to the square to meet her noble knight. There he was too, just as he had told her he would be.

#

From the arcade, little did either knight or lady realize they were being watched in the otherwise nearly empty square. The owl eyes of Frollo stared down from his height with a scowl ever deepening upon his powerful brow.

"Oh, your honor, there you are," said Fr. André from behind.

That scowl turned rather brooding as Frollo closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his back, but he did not turn to the little priest.

"Mass is about to start."

"So it is …" muttered Frollo. "I'm afraid I'm ill this evening."

"Ill?"

Frollo did not explain as he brushed past Fr. André down the steps. Fr. André did not follow, but watched until the archdeacon disappeared. Then when Frollo knew that Fr. André was no longer around, he went up into the towers, but not to go see Quasimodo. He went into his own tower room which he had claimed as his own. What was in there not even Quasimodo knew.

When he reemerged, Frollo was heavily cloaked. With an anger in his eyes that no longer seemed to be the rage of mortal man, he slunk out into the darkened streets of Paris just as the bells for the start of Mass began to ring. He did not look back as he swept over the cobbled stones like some dark bird.

He knew what Phoebus was up to. He had known before Phoebus left Paris to battle what sort of a man he was. He knew how he had tricked his way into becoming a proud and respected knight, for nothing was more important to Phoebus than looking important, except the sensual pleasures, which was his secret vice.

Only for the sake of his respectable father had Frollo ever kept Phoebus' sins a secret from the world, but no more. He did not know what he would do. Reveal him to the world, perhaps? He had no plan in mind except to stop the man, but it was not passion for justice which drove Frollo. The fiber of resistance to a rage that had built inside of Frollo since the Feast of Fools and indeed since the last days of his brother Benjamin had at last given way.

He found Phoebus just as he had expected him in his secret lair in a backstreet of the city where only drunkards and hopeless men dwelt who would not care or bother over a man like Phoebus. Through the window he saw the innocent girl unaware of the wolfish hunger in the eyes of Phoebus who was about to make his kill in a maiden's virginity.

Her eyes were closed as she felt comforted by the arm around her, but she suddenly opened them again in a sort of double take and she gasped to see the horrid leer beneath a black hood like the hood of death.

Phoebus turned too, but it was too late for him to recover from his surprise. In a fit of frenzy at his being discovered Frollo picked up the knight's sword near at hand and plunged the blade into Phoebus as one possessed, and perhaps he had been for that moment in a way, for the instant he committed his terrible deed, he felt an icy dread which caused him to drop the blade and flee.

The girl lying now helpless on the floor, pulled herself to her feet shivering and fearful, but when the phantom had disappeared, she lost no time in coming to Phoebus' side. He was not dead, but he would be soon, and she had no means to help him. She tried to stop the bleeding, but she knew she could not do this alone.

Running outside she called out for help.

Her dress was sprinkled with blood.

#

It would have been a beautiful spring day of flowers full in bloom in the countryside around Paris. Indeed the vibrant green surrounding the city was nearly at its peak color and shone in the sunshine like a jewel, but in the city of Paris only a few flower boxes showed that today was much different than any other day save for the warm air which bespoke of the coming summer. Yet the sun did little to bring warmth to an already heated scene of talk about the death of Sir Phoebus, knight of Paris.

Upon a brown horse freshly brushed but with a wild mane rode the knight Pierre Giroux into the square of Notre Dame. It did not take an eavesdropper to overhear the talk around him. His face turned grim as he heard the news of Phoebus' death, but his face grew darker when he heard the word "murder" come about. Not only murder but murder by the hand of the gypsy girl known as La Esmeralda, the very girl who had been the victim of a crime not but a few months ago.

Pierre paused and listened a little more. No one seemed to notice or care about his presence as the gathering spoke about how La Esmeralda was the last person who had been seen with the knight almost a week ago now.

"Perhaps it was not her who was the victim of the first crime, after all," it was said. "Gypsies, after all, are not to be trusted!" "Poor noble Phoebus outwitted by a little witch!" "Blood was seen on her dress as she ran through the night, I hear." "She also returned to the scene of the crime and screamed in horror to find poor Phoebus gone. The family has him now." "Is it true?" "But there hasn't been a formal funeral announcement." "The family must not want it abroad yet, this unfortunate event. People might think the wrong thing of him until the meaning of this has been solved …"

With a silent order to his horse, he moved on glancing up in a mild way at Notre Dame, but his mind was deep in thought and saw little detail save a blurring of color of the painted figures. As he passed by and came towards the Seine, he saw a brighter flash of color amidst a sweep of loose dark hair, and he knew before he took in full the familiarity of La Esmeralda with a little boy to play her song. She looked rather grim herself, but it was only because of the death of such a fine man as she thought she had had. Work had to continue; however, and she had no inkling as to the danger she was in. She had only just recently entered the street and had not begun to dance.

"Esmeralda."

The girl looked up a bit alarmed by his urgency as she turned her head up to the knight upon his wild steed.

"What? What do you want?" asked the girl.

" _Shh_ …" said Sir Giroux calmly as he glanced over his shoulder, and he returned to her. "Quiet now or they'll hear you."

"What are you talking about?" asked Esmeralda glancing down at the boy beside her uneasily for a moment.

"The authorities are waiting for you in the square."

"Why?"

Sir Giroux lowered his voice even more. "Because they think you killed Sir Phoebus."

The boy gasped, and Esmeralda stepped back uneasily.

"I didn't …" she said.

"I didn't think so," said Sir Giroux with a shake of his head. "It didn't add up."

"It was a phantom," said the girl.

Pierre made a face. "Phantom?"

"I didn't see him very well. He had a hood like some evil monk. I …" Esmeralda frowned and stared at the knight suspiciously. "Why are you telling me all this?" Turning to the boy she said suddenly something inaudible to the knight, and the boy ran away after glancing at Sir Giroux with more suspicion than the girl had.

"I know you didn't do it," insisted Giroux. "Why would you kill him? I can't believe that someone who took pity on the poor bell ringer that day would have the heart to kill a man in cold blood. Or even be capable as such a small thing as you are against a man like Phoebus. It's stupid."

"I'm stronger than I look," remarked the girl.

"I'm sure you are," muttered the knight a tad wryly. "But not strong enough to face all those men waiting for you." He paused. "Are you sure you didn't see the killer. Did he say anything?"

"I already said I couldn't see him," said Esmeralda. "He was like an etching of Death come to life is all he looked like hooded up like that so tall and thin like his robes were blowing on sticks. He just came and was gone. He said nothing intelligible that I can remember. He just—" Tears choked her again, and this time she could not catch the two great globs pouring down her cheeks though she wiped them away with her sleeve.

Sir Giroux dropped from his horse, and gently he gave her a handkerchief to dry her eyes.

Esmeralda refused to take it.

"Look!" someone shouted suddenly from further away in the square. "Sir Giroux has found her!"

Fear leapt in the girl's eyes, but as she began to flee the knight caught her arm behind a corner of a wall.

"I thought you said you wanted to help me!" she cried trying to wrench away. "Let me go!"

"Go to the cathedral," Sir Giroux hissed.

"What?" gasped the girl as the knight allowed her to break free of him.

"Go to the steps and shout 'sanctuary', and they won't be able to touch you."

The girl stared in disbelief.

"Do it!" he shouted.

Esmeralda ran like a deer from the wolves, and the wolves caught on quickly enough. Sir Giroux too feigned giving chase, causing the real pursuers to give him berth as he stuck to her heals. He even went so far as to brandish his sword, but at least one of the guards did not seem to fall for it, for he pushed his way in between the girl and the knight, and just as she reached the steps to the side Portal of St. Stephen at the south transept he managed to grab her by the hair.

Esmeralda screamed, but before the guards could wrench her from the steps she yelled out as loud as she could, " _Sanctuary_!"

The sound echoed into the air like the blare of a bell, and as at the blare of the bells of Notre Dame, the doves took flight.

Staggered, the guard released her, but more because of the sword suddenly pressed to his neck than because of the girl's cry. The knight then nodded to Esmeralda to open the portal door.

"She has the right," agreed another guard behind them, and Sir Giroux let down his sword.

"But you just told her of it!" declared the one who had grabbed her.

The knight closed the door upon the girl.

Roughly, the guard opened the door again, and Esmeralda stepped back in surprise.

"What are you doing?" demanded Sir Giroux shutting the door back.

Once more the guard opened the door and growled, "It doesn't count because you—!"

"What's all this?!"

The scene was interrupted as one lifting one's head from an intense scene from a book. And blinking with that same adjusting from the imagination of the text to the present in which one stands, everyone looked up at the archdeacon standing in the doorway just behind the girl.

Esmeralda stepped away at once, not in her stupor for more than two seconds.

Before Giroux could speak, the guard who had grabbed Esmeralda cleared his throat and with a bow of his head he said quickly, "Your honor, this is the murderess. The woman who murdered Sir Phoebus! And just because she has a pretty face Sir Giroux here tells her to go to the cathedral for safety."

Sir Giroux pushed his way in front of him.

"We don't know all the facts," he insisted throwing out his arms in gesticulation before the archdeacon. "How can a little girl like that kill a trained and experienced knight like Phoebus? He's fought hordes before! Caught on to traps as wise as serpents' snares when sneaking and was as watchful as an eagle behind his shoulders in battle! I cannot believe it."

"Who knows," snapped the guard. "She's s gypsy."

"A girl barely grown to her womanhood," argued Giroux.

"A woman's wiles, you know," retorted the guard.

"Enough!" Frollo boomed then X-ing out the situation with a crossing of his arms and out again. "This is completely childish behavior arguing like street urchins. How dare you defile this place with your quarrelling?"

"But sir!" Sir Giroux tried to interject, but Frollo would not hear anymore and held up his hand for silence.

"Everyone out!" he ordered.

"Well, except for the girl, of course," said a little unsteady voice from behind. "La Esmeralda."

Timid, it might have been called, but its impact upon the scene might be said to have been greater than the thundering boom of Frollo.

Giroux watched as Frollo's face turned very tight and almost green and his eyes grow wide with anger, but it did not last for more than a second before he calmly turned around and looked with everyone else at the little man a few feet inside the portal of St. Stephen.

"Well!" said the unassuming little country priest taking his hands from tugging at his sleeves and folding them together in front of himself; though he still look very uncomfortable. "… Because she has the right, of course."

Briefly, Frollo's eyes raised above Fr. Pierre André to the few other people looking up from their kneelers. One could not help but have overheard the whole procedure, and clearing his throat and straightening while all this was quite observed by the eyes of Sir Pierre Giroux, he nodded back to the priest.

"Of course, abbé," said Frollo. "Naturally. Thank you for that correction."

The priest looked down and said nothing as he seemed to be contemplating something or perhaps avoiding eye contact with the archdeacon, but Frollo then addressed the men at the door.

"As for the rest you," said Frollo quite seriously. "You are to leave immediately."

"Yes, your honor, I'm sorry for the disturbance," said the guard with a bow, and turning a tad reluctantly he motioned his fellow guards to follow him.

The knight and the girl exchanged glances briefly, but Esmeralda turned away most distraught and looking a little angry.

"You too, Pierre," said Frollo then addressing the knight alone.

The knight frowned.

"Unless you're here to pray …"

The archdeacon spoke this in the manner of a threat, and although part of Sir Giroux wanted to challenge that threat and remain in the cathedral with Esmeralda, he decided it would be far better to come back a little later. But he would not be far from the cathedral until he knew Esmeralda was safe.


	9. Chapter 9

JMJ

NINE

Frollo turned to Esmeralda then with a predatory leer and Esmeralda glared back trying to keep a strong stance as she bit her lip.

"As for you," Frollo said darkly, but he paused, glancing briefly at Fr. André and straightened himself into a more dignified stance. "Fr. André will take care of you for now. But you know. Unless something is worked out you cannot leave the cathedral without being arrested."

Esmeralda's eyes did not stray from the archdeacon as he turned to make his exit with a sweep of his robes. They remained fixed upon his back until he disappeared behind the door of the cloister's portal. The closed door might have remained her sole fixation too if Fr. André had not stepped delicately to her side.

"Don't be too afraid of him, poor girl," said Fr. André kindly. "He's been ill and unhappy recently. You'll be safe here for now, and I am confident that something will be worked out before long."

Shifting her head towards the little priest Esmeralda's frown deepened.

"How can you be sure?" she demanded. "What if they sneak in anyway?"

"They can't," Fr. André insisted. "The church is not part of France. It's as if you have passed the border into another country. Its King is God."

Here he thrust a finger boldly up to the High Altar, and Esmeralda had to admit that she was in awe of its magnificence, for never had she beheld the inside of Notre Dame. The cool gleaming floor to the vast high vaulted ceilings, and of course the statuary of the High Altar itself bathed in the rainbow of sunlight through the great stained glass windows certainly made it seem as though this was another world. She gazed up at the stained glass glittering like fairy dust with a mixture of intimidation and wonder.

"And according to God's laws," continued Fr. André. "'Thou shalt not kill.'"

"Why only in the church?" asked the girl turning to the priest demandingly.

Fr. André looked surprised by the question at first but shook his head sadly soon after.

"It shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't be just in the church. It should be everywhere …"

"I didn't kill him."

Angrily she fought back her tears.

" _Sh-sh-sh-sh_ , there, there, child," said the priest patting her arm. "Come here you poor thing."

Leading her gently he pulled out a stool with his foot and had her sit down.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," said the girl wiping her eyes.

"It's quite all right, I promise you," said the priest. "If you need to cry just cry …"

Esmeralda shook her head, and said quietly, "Why is the world so cruel? Why can't someone _do_ something about it?"

A heavy sigh escaped Fr. André, and taking a handkerchief of sorts he gave it to her to dry her eyes.

"There's only one person I know who can do something about it," admitted the priest.

"Who?" asked Esmeralda.

A second time, though far more sober in motion, he pointed up to the High Altar, and Esmeralda lowered her head.

"I will do what I can to help," Fr. André promised, "but right now I think the only thing to do is to pray."

"Of course you would think so," said the girl not rudely, but very unhappily, "you're a priest."

Fr. André smiled sadly.

"I'll be back shortly," he said after a pause. "I was caught a little off guard with this whole thing, I'm afraid. You just relax here, and I'll be back."

Only heaven saw the oddly shaped silhouette in the gallery just above the Portal of St. Stephen watching and listening. It did not shift until Fr. André had gone; then it settled against the rail and looked down upon La Esmeralda.

The girl remained upon her stool for a moment or so and then standing up she began to look around. First she looked once more at the High Altar. Then she turned towards the portal of the Cloisters in through which Fr. André had disappeared. Slowly she crept over the crossing to the north transept. Pulling back the door she peeked outside but she soon saw that it led only to the cloisters, and to shift across the grounds any way would be a useless pursuit as the guards were still about anticipating an escape.

Did not these men have other people to pursue?

Angrily, Esmeralda let the door close again and leaning her back against it she closed her eyes and sighed little knowing that the black shape in the gallery sighed sadly with her though far more softly.

After a moment the girl began walking along the aisle beneath the north side gallery. Soon hidden in shadow herself the silhouette began to move along the south side gallery to try to see where the girl was going. Her movements proved slow, and she walked like one in a melancholy dream. Though, her eyes remained alert and curious as she examined the windows, the pillars and the statues. She found the side chapel lit by long candles in an otherwise rather sheltered alcove. A painting hung upon the wall and a statue resembling the woman and the young child outside the cathedral. Notre Dame herself of course; Esmeralda knew that. And she beheld this statue a moment looking from the serene woman to the serene little boy. Flowers were set at her feet, and the girl paused to touch their petals and smell their fragrance before looking up at the woman again, the woman she heard be called the Mother of God.

She noticed that although the woman had a crown, she had nothing upon her feet. No sandals, no shoes. She could not help but wonder what the symbolism was behind that, for it seemed a contradiction that a lady with a crown would also go as barefoot as a pauper's girl. The boy too had nothing upon his feet. Beneath her own feet, she became conscious of the cold stones, and she looked again at the little boy who was supposed to be the Christian's God before his enemies killed him and yet he was alive again.

As she contemplated she did not perceive the form from the gallery now lurking in the shadows very near her instead of in the lofty heights. It opened its mouth and lifted its hand as though to make its presence known. More than once it did this, but nothing ever came out of the throat. It would fumble and recoil like a snail back into its shell.

Why did the Christians celebrate his death so much? It did not make much sense to her, for there were small carvings of his agony and crosses everywhere. Even Fr. André wore one around his neck. And if the Christians truly did pity their God's torture and death and loved a woman who was both for the rich and the poor, then how could they allow a man like that owl Claude Frollo walk about as a demigod of evil freely through their cathedral and a boy who had done nothing wrong be whipped as the enemies of the Christian God obviously had done to Him?

Part of her almost asked the statue of the woman this question as she looked up upon her face, which seemed to her that if one looked hard enough a tone of sadness could be seen within those stone eyes. Perhaps the woman too mourned what was becoming of her own cathedral.

A clank of brass echoed behind her, and stiffening, she immediately spun around. Someone had nearly knocked over a candle stand. That same someone was also trying to put it back into place, but spun around in fear towards Esmeralda with eyes wide with horror that he had been caught.

"You …" Esmeralda breathed.

Freed from his stupor the bell ringer steadied the candlestick and fled without a sound.

"Wait!" called the girl.

Some people looked up with confusion, but Quasimodo did not look back. Racing for the steps even faster with the knowledge that now others would see him too because of Esmeralda's call, he flew up into the tower. Esmeralda followed.

The bell ringer long outran her as she coiled along the spiral stairs; she felt the walls closing in upon her claustrophobically as she climbed, and she looked back down behind her as though she might be trapped in there. A small window like a flowery star shone in and she looked out upon the square below before continuing on into the darkness. At last she reached the top step lit by ruby glass glowing like huge red lanterns. She had already heard the door open and close, and with only a short pause she took hold of the door and found that she had come to the high balcony from one tower to the other. Welcoming the brightness and warmth of the afternoon sunshine and blinking a little as she grew accustomed to the change she moved on. She looked down over the stone rail only once very quickly and wrinkled her nose a little at a gargoyle, but she lost little time in coming to the next tower door, which had been shut the moment she stepped outside. Opening this new door, she peered into the tower.

"Hello?" she asked stepping in with care but leaving the door open so as to allow in the light. She glanced behind her once more too, before venturing in further and she said again softly, "Hello?"

"I'm sorry …"

Esmeralda jumped and turned towards the voice in the gloom, and having again grown accustomed to the sunlight outside, she could just barely see the form of the bell ringer, which in shadow form did indeed look like some terrible half-man half-beast, but Esmeralda knew it was only the broken boy that had been whipped for her sake. Cocking her head and squinting, she tried to make out his features into what he was truly: just a poor disfigured person.

Taking her movements as confusion for his apology, the boy clarified, "For running into … into your tent. I mean … oh …" He wrung his hands and shifted uncomfortably and seemed to be shrinking further into shadow.

"Oh no," said Esmeralda quickly and coming closer to him a pace or two, "I know you didn't mean anything by it. You were running away. Anyone could see that! Besides! You were more than—well!" she paused. "That shouldn't've happened to you."

Again the boy shifted, but it was more from a lack of finding the right thing to say in return than because of fear, it seemed to the girl. Encouraged by this assumption, Esmeralda stepped further into the gloom after him, but the boy tensed and grabbed hold of a beam as though she was going to turn into a beast herself and devour him.

With a sigh, Esmeralda crossed her arms. "You don't have to be afraid of me."

The boy lowered his head, and she could make out his shaggy hair falling into his face. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Esmeralda insisted kindly. "It's just …" She smiled a little. "Boy. What's your name?"

Again the boy hesitated.

"I know you're the bell ringer, and I know you live in the tower and they call you the hunchback of Notre Dame, but you must have a real name."

The boy cleared his throat and took a careful step towards the girl so that there were only a couple feet between them now.

"Quasimodo …" he said very softly.

"Quasi … what?" asked the girl.

"Quasimodo," said the boy again looking embarrassed.

"Well, you said it so softly the first time," the girl tried to tease, but it did not seem to ease any of the boy's tension. Perhaps he did not understand being teased. "Well, I'm pleased to meet you, Quasimodo," she then said far more candidly. "I'm called La Esmeralda."

Quasimodo at last carried a hint of a smile himself, the girl thought; though he was still too much in shadow to tell for certain. It was in his body language anyway, that bashful smile, and in his voice as he said, "Oh, uh. I know your name. I heard it … at … at the trial."

Esmeralda looked down, but she was not about to let the conversation fall away before it got started, so she lifted her head again and said casually, "How did you come to be here, Quasimodo? In this dark tower?"

"I …"

"You are the one who rings the bells, I know, but—"

"Oh, yes," said Quasimodo beaming in spite of himself, and he at last came out of the shadow onto the platform where Esmeralda stood. "I ring the bells. All the bells. I make sure never to miss a time. For every mass and every vigil. Every wedding and every funeral. For vespers and news. Well … everything."

Esmeralda smiled. "Did your father ring the bells?"

"I … no," said Quasimodo as though the question confused him slightly. "My master kindly gave them to me to watch over. I … never knew my father."

"Neither have I," said Esmeralda.

"I'm sorry."

Esmeralda laughed. "Don't be. I never knew him."

"Sorry …" said Quasimodo again, but he was smiling shyly, which satisfied Esmeralda. Then after a thoughtful pause he asked even more shyly, "Uh … would you … would you like to see them?"

"The bells?" asked Esmeralda.

"Yes," said Quasimodo fidgeting a little.

"Well, I've always been kind of curious, and I _am_ here …"

With the eager simplicity of a small child Quasimodo grinned, and Esmeralda could not help but laugh a little to see him for he did look a little silly. Quickly she stifled it for his sake even if he did not know that his grin was the cause of her laughter.

"This way, Esmeralda," he said leading her up a flight of creaky wooden steps, and Esmeralda was surprised to see the many things that lay about in a sort of good-natured menagerie. Ordered but peculiarly so in the many boxes, half-shelves, and feather woven baskets.

There were books, she saw, and the makings of a mat bed in an alcove and an assortment of other home-like things such as a stool and a hook for his cloak and all amidst magnificent naked beams, long ropes, and large nails. Behind a heavy piece of ragged cloth she could see the glistening of rainbow color dancing with the breeze, which aroused her curiosity immensely as she followed Quasimodo up a ladder. As she neared the top, she could look over the cloth and could see the spinning loose pieces of stain glass hanging on a mobile of sorts hovering over near a table upon which sat wooden buildings and what looked like little figures to go with them. She paused in her climb up the second ladder to get a better look at the sun lit scene through an opening shaft like a window, but she was interrupted by Quasimodo. He pointed out the bells upon reaching the top on the new platform.

And she looked, and was staggered by the size of the first massive bell.

"Wow …" she breathed, and grinned as she came to the platform herself.

"That's Big Marie," said Quasimodo touching the bell's Latin engravings and smiling at his first true guest he had ever had.

"She's beautiful," said Esmeralda coming to touch the bell so large it could be lived in if it was set onto its side.

"Yes," agreed Quasimodo.

It was bigger than a caravan wagon, and its ball inside, she saw, was bigger than her head. It was a trinket on a massive scale as a mouse might perceive a wagon wheel. Ducking inside she looked up to the darkened top inside. Quasimodo ducked under too, delighted to see Esmeralda so enchanted by his beloved favorite of the bells.

"How do you ring it?" asked the girl. "It's so huge."

Dropping a finger to the floor, Quasimodo pointed out the rope that went through to the lower levels underneath, and after following his finger, Esmeralda looked up again to see where the rope was attached.

"It works like a pulley," Quasimodo said, "so it's not as hard to pull as a person might think.

"That's amazing," said the girl coming out again from under the bell.

Quasimodo looked a little surprised. "You really think so?" he asked timidly. "No one's ever called it that before."

"It must be a lovely job. I would like to have it, I think." said Esmeralda beaming.

"You would?" asked Quasimodo more surprised than before.

"Yes, it would be better than dancing in the street."

"Dancing in the street doesn't seem like a bad job," Quasimodo insisted, "and you're very good at it."

Esmeralda smiled sadly. "So I've been told." But she quickly changed the subject from a topic, which the boy was obviously too sheltered from the world to understand. "But how did you get the job? After all, many people can dance, but there is only one bell ringer of Notre Dame."

"It was my dream to pull them," said Quasimodo in full seriousness. "I love the bells. Big Marie and her sisters were given to me very kindly by Master."

"Fr. André?" asked Esmeralda squinting.

"Oh, no," laughed Quasimodo softly, "he just got here. He's the acting priest. The archdeacon, his honor, Claude Frollo is my master."

Esmeralda made a face. "Oh …"

Turning to Quasimodo again, she thought how hateful it would be to be a servant of that man. To have those eyes glaring down upon a person every day like some kind of vulture waiting for its prey to die.

But as she thought these things looking upon the poor boy she could not help but see also the true state of his features in the sunlight pouring in through the slating louver-boards. He truly was deformed; though she tried not to think badly of him. The bones in his spine not only were hunched but leaned painfully over to one side besides. His nose and his chin looked as if someone had shoved them into his face and neck, and although one eye was as clear and bright as the morning sky, the other was tightened and his eyelid stretched queerly as a result of what looked like some great welt or possibly a wart pressed out from his eyebrow. It looked the most painful of all, and she wondered if it pained him that very moment.

She saw the boy's elation fall away, and she turned away ashamed.

Quasimodo sighed. "I know. I'm hideous."

Esmeralda gasped and turned back to him. "No, it's not that!"

"You don't have to lie to me," said Quasimodo rubbing his arm queerly. "I know. I've seen my own reflection. Everybody looks at me like that, like a monster, and I don't blame them."

"I didn't say I thought you looked like a monster," Esmeralda asserted.

"But I know I do look like one," said Quasimodo. "I …"

"Well, I know you're not one."

Quasimodo did not answer as he seated himself on a beam beneath a smaller bell. Esmeralda sat beside him and let her legs dangle beneath as she scooted closer to him.

"If I thought you were a monster, would I have followed you up here?" the girl demanded.

With uncertainty did Quasimodo look up at Esmeralda's face, wreathed in her usually so dark hair, shining like gold in the filtered sunlight now.

"I … don't know," Quasimodo said and shrugged. "I suppose not. But … does that mean, you aren't repulsed by me or … afraid?"

"If you were planning on hurting me you would have done so already," Esmeralda retorted. "As far as I can see you are as gentle as a lamb. You just seem lonely, like you're a prisoner here under such a master."

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Quasimodo holding up his hands in his defense. "I'm not a prisoner here! I've lived here all my life. My master saved me when I was a baby after Gypsy bandits who are usually very evil people" (Esmeralda frowned) "came to rob my parents and they ended up getting killed, and he's taken good care of me ever since. I know he has. He seems stiff and hard sometimes, but he really is the best master I could hope for …" He paused looking away thoughtfully as he wrung his hands between his knees. "But it does get lonely up here …sometimes."

"Well, _I'm_ a prisoner here," said Esmeralda in spite of herself. "If I leave they'll arrest me."

Quasimodo looked upon the girl sadly but shook his head. "They can't catch you because of the law of sanctuary, you know."

"You heard all that at the steps?" asked Esmeralda leaning her chin in her hand and her elbow on her lap.

"Yes … I know you never meant to harm anyone …" said Quasimodo hesitantly, "um … but I've always known the law of sanctuary. This is a place of safety, this cathedral, because no outside law of execution is allowed within the borders of God's House. Only God can judge a man within His house, and the afterlife is where one is rewarded or condemned."

"But I can't stay here forever," said Esmeralda.

"I do," said Quasimodo helpfully as he rose to his feet and spread out his arms towards the slate allowing in the light. "It is a nice place to live. You can see the whole city from the balcony and even further from the top of the tower." Here he reached out with a sweep of his arm towards the stone steps leading still further to the cathedral's pinnacle heights. "There's plenty of places to walk around, and they'd feed you, and I'd take care of you."

Esmeralda smiled. "I'm sure you would."

"And you aren't like me. You can go freely down into the church and pray all day long down there like the sisters and the brothers from the cloisters."

"But I don't live here. I live somewhere else, and I already have a place of my own and people I know."

"Oh … I see," said Quasimodo nodding in sympathetic understanding.

Esmeralda sighed.

"And you think you're a monster," she muttered.

"Esmeralda," said Quasimodo after a pause, and he spoke with a most princely determination even if childlike simplicity. "I've never met anyone like you before. You've been so good to me even though we've only known each other for a short time. You are good and courageous like St. Veronica to come to me when I was whipped and like St. Theodora in disguise as Theodore and wrongly accused, but you _are_ right. You should go home. I know it's selfish of me to wish you would stay …"

Again Esmeralda could not help but sigh. The pedestal upon which the boy was placing her was a little uncomforting, but his loneliness was the cause, she knew. Her heart only went out to him all the more.

"I belong with the stone grotesques," said Quasimodo, "not with such beauty."

But here Esmeralda could not stop her frown. "Well, feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to help."

"I'm not feeling sorry for myself," said Quasimodo. "It's true."

"What's true? There are a lot of people worse off than you. I've seen them. Far sicker and poorer than you. Some people are missing limbs and have rotting teeth and eyes that are dried up and can no longer see."

"Except they aren't missing the most important thing."

"What's that?" asked the girl.

"A soul."

Esmeralda's eyes widened with surprise, but she answered simply, "You have a soul."

"No," said Quasimodo with a shake of his head.

"Who says?"

"It's just true," said Quasimodo.

She had a good idea what nasty owl would imply such a thing to such a helpless boy. With a shake of her head Esmeralda stood up on her feet and leaning against a diagonal beam she studied the poor creature a moment, and she knew he believed exactly what he said.

"You have too much life in your eyes," said Esmeralda sternly but ever-so tenderly, "to not have a soul."

"My eyes?" asked Quasimodo uneasily.

"They're too gentle and thoughtful not to have a soul behind them."

Quasimodo considered this a moment clutching another beam and staring out towards the sunlight.

"This might be a strange question, Esmeralda," said Quasimodo, "but what do _you_ say that a soul is?"

Esmeralda thought a moment herself now, and gathering her thoughts upon a topic in which she knew she was no master, she said, "It's what makes you alive. It's what makes you, you."

After a long silence, Quasimodo said, "So I wouldn't be me without one."

"No."

"I never thought about it like that before," said Quasimodo, "but I think Monsieur Archdeacon Benjamin tried to tell me something like that once. Most people make it sound so complicated."

"Maybe it is," said Esmeralda. "I don't know, but I don't really care. I just think you are being very foolish to worry about not having one."

"I'm not sure …" said Quasimodo to himself as he looked up at the great bell known as Big Marie, "I'll have to think about it."

"I think you have a strong soul actually."

Quasimodo blinked back at the girl.

"Oh? Uh, thank you. Uh, I think."

"I'm a gypsy, you know, and I've known some gypsies who can tell the future, because their souls are so strong."

"Oh …" Quasimodo looked disappointed somehow.

"I just know," Esmeralda said, "that you have a depth to you that is definitely not stone."

Quasimodo smiled a moment, and then blinked thoughtfully once more.

"You're not like other gypsies."

Esmeralda laughed. "How would you know if you never met one? I'm not saying all gypsies are angels, but I'm not evil."

"Of course not!" Quasimodo exclaimed.

"Even if I'm not an angel either."

"You're very pale for a gypsy."

Wrinkling her nose wryly, Esmeralda said, "Or do you mean that you don't think I'm mean enough?"

Twiddling his fingers uncomfortable Quasimodo lowered his head.

"Before my aunt told me that she couldn't take care of me anymore and sent me off," said Esmeralda then quickly as she was enhanced in her belief that Quasimodo did not understand teasing, "I heard her say that my father was not a gypsy but a Frenchman." She glanced at Quasimodo. "You know … you're awful dark to be a normal Frenchman too. People aren't always what they seem to be, you know, and you're living proof all around."

"But you're as kind and gentle as you look," said Quasimodo helpfully.

"I don't know about that," said the girl looking away from his puppy gaze, and she sighed. "Either way, kind or not, I'm still stuck here."

"Oh, yes," Quasimodo said nodding solemnly.

"If only I could just fly away," the girl breathed like the wind that would sweep away comfortably beneath a flying dove.

"Like an angel …" whispered Quasimodo, and with a wistful sort of expression he said, "Maybe you can."

"Don't be silly," laughed Esmeralda, "no one can fly, soul or not."

"Well, not literally," said Quasimodo with a sheepish grin. "I meant I know a way you could slip out without anyone knowing."

"You do?" asked Esmeralda.

Quasimodo nodded.

"I told you I've lived here my whole life. I know every nook and cranny, and believe me, there are a lot of them!"

"But what about when I'm outside? They're guarding all around the cathedral."

"On the ground," Quasimodo reminded her. "Like you said, no one can fly literally."

"I have to step on the ground sometime too then," said Esmeralda.

"Yes," agreed Quasimodo, "away from the doors."

Esmeralda smiled once more with a playfully.

"All right then, Quasimodo," she said, "show me the way."


	10. Chapter 10

JMJ

TEN

Leading La Esmeralda out onto the balcony, Quasimodo felt a strange buzz run through his body. Never had he done anything close to rescuing anyone before. He had only sneaked down the side of the cathedral once or twice before in his life and the second time had led to disaster even if it had also led to his coming to know his new friend. Suppressing a shiver, he came to the rail and glanced down at the square below.

He could see the guards stationed not too far away in various locations watching the doors, and his determination solidified. There was no way he would let Esmeralda get caught by these men and endure the same treatment as he had by those same guards— or worse: being hanged.

"Okay," said Esmeralda coming close beside him. "What do we do now?"

"Hang on."

"What?" whispered the girl.

"Hang onto me, and I'll climb you down," said Quasimodo.

Esmeralda quickly agreed, and after she had climbed onto his back, she was as light as Quasimodo had hoped. Thus making he made his way down in a very sheltered spot behind the cathedral where no one would see just as he had gone down for the Feast of Fools. He disappeared into the late afternoon shadows. Behind the sharply cut stones in a ride with vertigo, Esmeralda at times clung very hard to Quasimodo, and he felt very strange being held onto so tightly by someone who needed him. No one had ever needed him before for anything other than ringing the bells. The responsibility over the girl strengthened him, and with a skill he did not even know he possessed he managed to reach the ground with greater ease while holding someone who was counting on him than the manner in which he had slipped down alone.

The guards were still about not far away, but in the shelter of the cathedral and the trees of the grounds, they managed to whisk across the street without being seen as far as they knew. At least no guards had spotted them. Once the pair thought themselves safe they stopped in the nearby alleyway.

"I see no sign of them anymore," she said quietly looking around a corner with caution. "I think it worked."

"I told you it would," said Quasimodo grinning in spite of himself.

"They probably don't think I would try to sneak out until nightfall anyway," said Esmeralda as she turned to her rescuer, and she smiled warmly in return. "Thank you, Quasimodo."

"I was just glad I could help you," Quasimodo replied twiddling his fingers, "it was the least I could do, for I could never repay you for what you did for me the Ninth Day of Christmastide. Uh, but I would've done it anyway even without that, for picturing anything bad happening to a girl as kind as you—"

Before he knew what she was doing, Esmeralda leaned over and kissed Quasimodo directly on the cheek.

"Thank you," she said again.

Such in a stupor was Quasimodo by her action that he did not know how to respond as the girl, still smiling, backed away and wished him luck before she dashed into Paris.

He nearly forgot where he was as she stood in the alleyway in a dazed sort of manner as he touched his face where the warmth of another had actually touched him in a kiss. But he was not so far out of it that he did not hear someone coming just then, and in a sudden fright he leapt away back to the shelter of Notre Dame. When he was certain it was safe again, he slipped up the side as he had gone down and climbed back to his tower.

#

One person took note in the flight of La Esmeralda. He had not seen the entire climb of the hunchback to the ground, but he had seen enough to know that was how it had been accomplished. With a beer in his hand Pierre Giroux watched from a window across from the street a moment with care as the bell ringer and the gypsy girl raced into an alley. Then standing up casually from his table he paid for his drink and left for the stables. Evening was setting in, but he was still in time to catch Quasimodo slip back to the cathedral and, more importantly, to see Esmeralda slip further into the back streets of Paris.

With casual care upon his horse, he followed the girl a ways. He was some distance behind her and often could not see her at all, but he had a mind, one must understand, to make certain no one would disturb Esmeralda on her way back home, wherever home was for the poor girl or if she truly had a home at all. Admittedly, also there was some curiosity involved, for he also wished to know where the girl stayed. Her welfare began to become more and more important to the knight whose instinct truly was saving the damsel in distress and the righting of the wrong.

Though, it should have also occurred to him that stalking a girl at night was not a noble thing to do in any occasion. Anyone who might have been witness to it might have thought him as bad as Sir Phoebus had turned out to be.

The further he followed, however, the quieter the streets became so that by the time he got off his horse in the queerest place he had been to in Paris, it seemed as though he had entered a ghost town. The buildings were rundown and all piled on top of each other. It was a slum, yes, but it was more than that somehow. He had lost sight of Esmeralda by now, but he was too caught up in the silent colorful banners hanging about as he came under a mournful stone arch and peered at the queer world inside. It was as silent as death or at least the silence before a storm, but just as he was passing through the archway to the other side, lightning apparently struck as he felt a strange tug beneath his legs.

"AH!" he cried and fell face first onto the ground.

He was not down for long, despite the pain of a face full of gravel and stone. Wrenching himself upright he reached for his sword, but he was not fast enough to unsheathe it as suddenly he saw his pursuers leaping out all around him as though materializing out of the shadows. They were mean and beastly and ragged, but they seemed to know what they were doing despite their boisterous shouts.

One tried to grab the reigns of his horse, but Ensoleillé, the knowing creature, would not be captured. Rearing with a cry, the horse bolted after kicking its would-be ensnarer square in the jaw.

As for Pierre Giroux, his enemies were far too many and fighting on their own turf as they surrounded him. One revealed a rope as Giroux at last wrenched out his sword between the shoves and kicks and even a bite from someone. A dog barking made the chaos even greater, but it came after not before the bite. The dog merely continued to urge on its fellows as the rope was soon knotted tightly around the knight despite his noble fight to free himself. One voice at last staggered him and caused him to lose against the rope.

It was the voice of Esmeralda.

" _Wait_! No, stop! What are you doing?"

"We should hang him!" shouted one man.

"Slice up like a ham!" shouted another.

"Slice his head off with his own blade! The intruder!" snarled the voice of a woman rising up from behind the rowdy men.

"Well, I got a nifty little blade right here!" shouted one man wrenching a rough-edged dagger from his rope belt, and he sniggered vilely.

"No, don't kill him!" gasped Esmeralda. "He's a fool but not an enemy!"

But her protests were soon lost as the shouts of the others reached their peak. Giroux tried once again to escape out of the grasp of his captors, rope and all. He was pushed downward at their feet, and he moaned as their unintelligible battle cry blared against one man.

"STOP!"

The silence was immediate; though the voice was no deeper or more menacing than a tenor. In fact it was lighter than nearly all the rogues' voices closest to the knight, perhaps even lighter than the woman in favor of the beheading. Not only was there silence, but a sudden reforming from their animalistic performance to that of at least as civilized as a band of righteous thieves.

The people further back from the thugs looking out from windows or merely shouting at the sidelines became downright humble and the thugs themselves became as stately as knights. La Esmeralda could at last be seen and she, as everyone else, was turned towards the clear voice like to the call of a hawk, and the man to whom the voice apparently belonged was indeed comparable to a hawk after a fashion. At least his nose was a bit like a falcon's beak, and his dark eyes were alert to everything around him, but there was a sanguine gleam in those eyes which could nearly be likened to the glint of a mischievous boy or even a child of the fay.

He was neither very tall nor very broad, but he could not be considered short, and no one could dare to call him weak. He had the power and energy of a jackrabbit just waiting to be used, but he withheld it to some degree as he strutted onto the scene. His mischievous grin turned sinister as he came to the bound and gagged Sir Giroux. He wore upon his head a broad-brimmed hat as of a musketeer, which he bore like a crown upon his head with a long cock feather stuck into its side. From beneath the hat and hanging just above the shoulder, his black hair shone nearly blue in the queer torchlight around them, and his rich dark skin gleamed with equal intensity so that the body beneath his shady plum and heather-colored clothing was brighter than what he wore as though he were a lantern shining behind broken colored glass. His heavy gold looping earrings were the only things that gleamed brighter save the powerful brilliance in his deep amber eyes.

"What's going on here?" demanded the man with some annoyance as he straightened with false pomp and arms flung around his back, but directly afterwards he was grinning from ear to ear down upon the captive. "Interesting to see a knight bound for once. Can't usually catch much glimpse of that treasure without the danger of losing your own life for the sake of Allah."

"He was trespassing, sir," one man began. And soon the others all began talking at once. "He followed La Esmeralda here!" "Now he must die for it!" "He's seen too much already!" "He's seen _you_!" "We got him bound" "We got the weapons." "His horse escaped!" "It's just a horse!"

"Yes," interrupted the man holding up his hand for silence and closing his eyes importantly. "Well, I fear no single knight beholding my true glory in the dead of night. Ungag him at least. I want to talk to him."

The gag was ripped roughly from Giroux's face and Giroux suppressed the urge to growl.

"Do you know where you are anyway, _monsieur chevalier_?" asked the man now squatting down confidentially to Giroux's side and placing his hand warmly upon his shoulder.

"My guess is the Court of Miracles," replied the knight calmly trying to retain what dignity still remained to him.

"Ah, but the Court of Miracles is just a myth," said the man. "After all, who would believe a whole troupe of vagabonds and misfits would join together in the agony of their plight, become worse in their plight as to transform into cripples, and blind men, and sickly weak, only to return to their royal wasteland with wealth to please them as rich as kings and their maladies vanished?" After patting the knight's head he stood up crossing his arms broadly over his chest as he let out a slight chuckle. "All under the command of a mythical beast, the King of Truands, the infamous and feared, the one called 'Clopin Trouillefou' in whispers of terror behind closed doors and used to frighten children who think they want to sneak out at night. And now here before you like the phantom who bested Sir Phoebus, the dearly departed" (Here he took off his hat from his head and placed it over his heart and wiping away a false tear) "is the mythical band about to take out one more knight?"

"You killed Captain Phoebus?" demanded Giroux.

"Don't be absurd," retorted the man placing the hat promptly back onto his head, and he turned away. "I wouldn't waste my time sneaking into town slitting people's throats with their own swords. I'm not an assassin! I'm a man of standards, but I do have one question that's bothering me exceedingly."

"What?"

"What is your business with our little Emerald?" asked the man pointing to the girl in question.

"He tried to help me earlier today and—"

"Ah, ah! My dear, let the noble knight speak for himself," the man tutted.

"I was—" started Giroux and coughed. "Well, I wanted to make certain that no one would try to … capture her."

"Oh, sad story," remarked the man. "Such lack of creativity. Wouldn't you say, boys?"

The other nearby men laughed to themselves.

Picking up Sir Giroux's fallen sword from the ground he pointed it slowly towards the knight's face.

"Do you believe this silly stalker and trespasser, La Esmeralda?" he asked.

"I know he means no harm," Esmeralda insisted.

Bringing the sword to his face broadside, the man examined the edge and shifted the blade around a little to give it a full analysis.

"I'm not without mercy," muttered the man meanwhile as he examined the blade.

"We're not going to hang him, sir?" asked a particularly dangerous looking ruffian.

After a pause the man looked at his fellow with a certain amount of disinterest.

"No, no, no," he said stabbing the ground and leaning upon the handle of Giroux's sword. "I think a knight deserves a fair chance of dying with honor or giving the chase, especially if the girl vouches for him."

Sir Giroux leered. " _Hmph_."

"Well, you are trespassing, after all," said the man idly almost as though he would yawn, and he examined his gloved fingers intently as he continued. "The only way people can come to the Court of Miracles is by private invitation or marriage. As you've come here without an invitation or a wife of the court, then by law you must die."

"Whose law?" Giroux demanded.

"Why, my law," the man sniffed.

"And who are you?"

Sweeping off his hat for a gallant bow, the man replied, "Clopin Trouillefou …" (His subjects bowed then before their illustrious king.) "and it's an honor, most gracious knight. Sir—eh." He placed his hat once more upon his head. "Sir whatever-your-name-is," he muttered, "and I'm entirely at your service. Until you're hanged anyway."

"So then what are you waiting for exactly?" Giroux asked.

"Well, I was going to offer you a chance at nobleness, remember," said Clopin. "A dual. In the true sense of the word. You kill me, then you go free. If I kill you, well …" Clopin shrugged almost childishly then sneered menacingly.

"No! Don't do it!" gasped Esmeralda.

"It's either that or we hang you right now," said Clopin, and turning to a man on hand he clapped his hands together twice in a regal manner. "Harceler! Go get the noose."

"At once, sir!" exclaimed a very ruffled looking man.

"No!" snapped Giroux.

Clopin halted Harceler and turned to Giroux. "Yes? Something we'd like to say, sir knight?"

"I don't trust you. Any of you, but it seems I have no choice but to accept your dual."

"Oh, good!" exclaimed Clopin eagerly, "I haven't had a good dual in a while. Hopefully you'll put up a good fight." And to his subjects he said, "Women and children clear the area! We're having a bloody dual, wouldn't want the fragile ones to be scarred for life or anything. Untie the criminal! And here's his sword! I have my own."

Once more he released a sinister grin, and he watched patiently as Pierre scrambled to his feet the moment his bonds were loose enough to push his way out without the help of his ruffian captors.

"Show him into the main court!" Clopin then said, and turning around with theatric flare he made for the said destination himself.


	11. Chapter 11

ELEVEN

Thus did Pierre Giroux find himself amongst this amiable band. They gave him a drink. They gave him a strange sort of mockery of last rights. They then at last graciously bestowed upon him his corner and all with the same gentle concern one might have for a crazed jackal. Once he was at last left to himself and his sword he was at least thankful that he was no longer being moved about with such manhandling.

He looked across the ring the crowd had made for the combatants and saw the king of thieves sitting leisurely upon a chair propped on one leg with a stone to make up for where it was broken half way up. A woman behind him was messaging his shoulders, and he smiled back at Pierre with a sort of smug satisfaction as if he had already won.

To add to his expression he spoke out to the knight, "Before we begin, I would like to know the name of the man I'm about to have the honor of killing, but you _are_ the new captain after Phoebus, aren't you?"

"A little overconfident?" demanded Giroux. "Unless you're planning on cheating."

"Perish the thought," gasped Clopin. "No one will interfere. It's man to man. Everything you got against everything I got! So! Name, if you please?"

"Pierre Giroux of the knights of France," said Giroux roughly, and no, he did not add that technically with the death of Phoebus he was the new captain.

"Enchanté!" said Clopin rising from his seat then and throwing his cavalier's hat aside for one of his subjects to catch. "A knight from the Crusades, no less, I suppose. I'll have you know I myself fought off a horde of Moors across the Moorish dunes and all for the hand of the sultan's daughter." He laughed. "Trouble was she didn't want to take the risk of running away to Italy with me in the end and won back her father's love."

Some of the others laughed with him this second time.

Pierre rolled his eyes. "Are you going to stop playing games and fight," he huffed. "I'd kind of like to get on with this."

"Right!" exclaimed Clopin unsheathing a very eastern looking sword—shorter and wider than Pierre's sword and with a dangerous curved edge—as though he might have actually stolen it from the Moors and that his tale might have actually have had some truth to it. "No more talk! Let's fight!"

A roaring cheer came from the crowd, and Pierre thought to himself what madness he had entered upon run by the Mad Terror himself. Diving into the fight with caution Pierre watched the terror's every move as they fought. Surprisingly it was fair to the rules of the Western World, but Pierre knew at any moment Clopin would unleash his madness upon him.

They were both swordsmen regardless of treachery, and Pierre would have said they were evenly matched even if their techniques were hard to compare. Honestly, Pierre had little desire to actually kill the lunatic. If he could he would simply disarm him and try to make his escape. Except that the more they fought, the more Pierre realized that Clopin might be just a little better than he was — at least if he could ever get over his theatrics which often got in the way, Pierre thought. But was it a distraction to hide that he was not as skilled at the blade as he was at his footwork? Or was it to merely imply the latter so that Pierre would be taken off guard when true skill was displayed?

All in all, Pierre felt incredibly unnerved.

He might have to fight to the death against Clopin, after all.

Then suddenly Clopin struck, not with the blade, but with his foot, tripping Pierre face-first into the ground. Pierre thought he was dead for certain, but the crowd cheered, and he swerved around on his knees only to face a smiling Clopin leaning against his chin upon his hands clutching the sword stuck into the ground.

"You said no more funny business," remarked Pierre getting to his feet.

Only experience on a battlefield had Pierre moving out of the way just in time at the sound of a whizzing blade. The dagger struck the ground behind Pierre and the knight turned angrily back at the still calmly grinning Clopin, but his hand was recoiling from the throw. The blade had come from him. "Everything each of them had," had another meaning, just as Pierre had supposed.

Clopin shrugged to the glaring Pierre. "My game. My rules. But you are good at this."

Pierre merely leapt up with a neat swing of his sword, from which, with a slight exclamation, Clopin just barely managed to leap out of the way himself.

Again they fought, and this time to Pierre's satisfaction, the theatrics were far less, and the true fight was now beginning. They fought hard and they fought long. Then at last Pierre struck well, and with a blade in the true tradition of a dual, but he had not killed his foe, merely wounded him and leaving a great rip in his clothes at which Clopin grabbed at before any blood fell. The crowd became ghostly silent as all watched with eyes wide in disbelief their leader falling onto his knees and breathing heavily. He attempted to get up but was unable. With an angry growl he threw his sword onto the ground and bent himself further towards the ground in his agony.

Standing before the fallen Clopin, Pierre could not decide what best to do. He could not kill the man in this condition, but if he turned his back, Clopin could still dish out some last move. He would not turn his back on him. Plus if he actually killed him, his men might kill the knight anyway. Thus he slowly backed up. The crowd was more interested in their king at the present.

Some people began to bend down next to him to see if there was anything they could do, but Clopin shoved them away, fire rekindling in his eyes as he glared at Pierre. Then clearing his throat, and closing his eyes calmly, he began to get up onto his feet. He would not allow help from his subjects but he still clutched his wound as he staggered upright.

Then addressing Sir Giroux, he said, "My sword. Please. I gave you yours. It's only fair."

"You don't seriously think you're going to fight like that," said Pierre distrustfully.

With a shrug, Clopin then made his way to his sword himself, and with a shake of his head, Pierre closed his eyes. Unfortunately, that was what Clopin was waiting for. Before he even touched his sword, he threw out another dagger, and although Pierre was expecting something of that nature to happen a second time, he had not been able to escape it this time. Though it barely scuffed him through his clothing it was apparently that same mere scuff that Clopin had received as well, for before Pierre recovered, the mad terror, like a swooping hawk, flew down upon him and kicked him down. Snatching Pierre's sword as well as his own, and as strong as ever he did not even wipe the sweat from his brow as he made to plunge both blades into Pierre's chest.

"NO!" screamed La Esmeralda.

Both fighters looked up in surprise as the girl came rushing to Clopin's side.

"Please! Stop!" she begged with hands clasped together. "He's my fiancé! That's why he followed me here."

Clopin leered at the girl a moment but seemed to consent, not that Pierre truly thought this was over.

As the _roi des truands_ backed away he muttered, "Why didn't you say that before? You're usually such an outspoken girl."

"I tried," insisted Esmeralda, "but no one gave me the chance!"

Throwing down Pierre's sword and looking rather put out, Clopin began to walk away amidst the crowd opening a way for him. Yet at the brink of it he paused as though a thought had suddenly occurred to him; though Pierre guessed he had had the thought since Esmeralda had spoken her excuse. It was his theatrics again, of course, that caused him to wait with a dramatic pause before asking: "When's the marriage, _ma chèrie_?" And he turned to Esmeralda with a bright smile.

"Uh … well," said Esmeralda glancing at a most disgusted Pierre who actually was bleeding a little. "As soon as possible, sir."

Glancing doubtfully from knight to girl and back again, Clopin then let out a laugh and continued into the crowd.

Esmeralda helped Pierre the rest of the way to his feet, but Pierre did not feel overly grateful at the moment. With some exasperation he pushed her away.

"Then let us commence with the wedding, shall we?" said Clopin over his shoulder.

Thus again, Pierre Giroux found himself dragged into further madness, this time in front of a site of old Roman ruins since there was no church readily available in the court. Standing before the couple too was Clopin dressed in a ragged old black robe as though after the fashion of a priest, and clearing his throat, Clopin straightened himself and addressed the crowd.

"Dearly beloved," he said calmly. "We are gathered here before heaven this night to witness the union of a man and a woman although from very different backgrounds—one of a very stuffy family of French lords with stiff collars and shiny boots who kiss their crosses for luck they don't need and step on the heads of those they feel inferior; and the other from the humble and noble lineage of the homeless travelers known as the gypsies from the far off regions of the east and who herself is as poor as dirt, the poor delicate jewel, and who is thought to be a witch simply because she was in the same vicinity of Captain Phoebus' supposed _murder_! But!" Here he thrust up a pointer finger towards the starlit sky. "Both of these young people have looked past their differences in the face of death and have found themselves ensnared by the ever-powerful bonds of love!"

Slowly Pierre and Esmeralda exchanged glances, though none of these glances, a plethora of an uncomfortable and heated sort, were the passionate expressions of lovers, it can be certain. Overall Esmeralda looked embarrassed for herself and sympathetic for the knight whereas the knight looked for the most part thoroughly annoyed and certainly maddened.

"If anyone here thinks these two should not be united speak now or forever hold your peace!"

Someone from the crowd lifted his hand. "Sir, I think—"

"Good!" exclaimed Clopin, and turning to the couple he said, "Then I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride!"

Esmeralda and Giroux merely stared for a moment as Clopin urged them on with a rolling of his hand towards each other.

"Go on," he said. "We're going to stand here until you do."

"You've got to be joking," muttered Pierre.

Esmeralda bit her lip, but Clopin seemed unconcerned. He leaned to Pierre and whispered confidentially, "I don't joke about love."

"Well, apparently you do," remarked Pierre.

Hardly had he finished his phrase however when Esmeralda quickly kissed him on the lips.

Clopin clasped his hands together.

"Ah, _l'amour_!" he sighed.

Pierre backed away from the girl in surprise.

Then clearing his throat again Clopin spoke with a hand over the couple as though to bless them most solemnly, "In sickness and in health, until death do you part!" as well as some other tidbits stolen from a Christian marriage before he said in the same tone, "Now that this is accomplished we must solemnly sit down to a supper feast for the luck and prosperity of the wholesome union."

"Here, here!" exclaimed the crowd.

"But!" said Clopin, and then he leaned once more grinning most dangerously towards the knight. "If ever you breathe a word of what has transpired here and where it transpired you will _ex_ pire. You understand, of course."

Pierre frowned.

"I see we understand each other," said Clopin patting the knight on the cheek, and with that he slipped away.

Supper was underway.

During the preparations Pierre turned to Esmeralda.

"Why did you do that?" he demanded; he was holding his sword tightly at his side since Clopin had returned it after the performance.

"He would have killed you if I hadn't," retorted the girl. "You tried to save me from death now I returned the favor. I only did it to save you. I don't really love you. My grief for the love lost in dear Phoebus is too deep."

Pierre sighed. "I'm sorry." He paused. "It's not like it was a real marriage anyway."

"Not a Christian marriage, no," agreed Esmeralda. "Or a gypsy marriage, but it was for Clopin and that's all that matters."

"He's insane!" Pierre hissed. "You must see that. Why do you stay with him?"

"The same reason why everyone does except for some of the rougher people of the band who are just attracted to his power," said Esmeralda. "He took me in when no one else did. I'm an orphan. My aunt could no longer care for me. Anyone who is down on their luck can come to the Court of Miracles and Clopin Trouillefou will welcome them."

"Then why was he going to kill me?" demanded Pierre.

"Because you're not down. You're a French knight. Even your horse is higher positioned than most of the people here. Clopin makes miracles happen."

"I'd say more madness," said Pierre crossing his arms.

"Madness is what saves him, I suppose. Madness staved my own starvation, if you want it that way. Though, he was behaving madder than usual to make an impression on you. He's not what he seems."

"I know he's not." A second time the knight sighed and touched at his now scabbed wound.

"It's not hurt badly, is it?" asked the girl.

"No," said the knight. "I'll be fine… thank you, Esmeralda, for saving me. I guess my job here is done. I'm going to leave before his lordship Monsieur Trouillefou decides to do something else to include me in his merrymaking."

"Okay," said Esmeralda with a nod. "Take care of yourself."

Sir Giroux sheathed his sword.

"Just don't go near the square," he warned.

Then coming to the archway at the edge of the court where his horse was waiting for him, he began to ride off. He looked behind him one last time as La Esmeralda watched him leave from just inside the court. Turning ahead he shook his head sadly and continued on his way back to normalcy.


	12. Chapter 12

JMJ

TWELVE

Deep in the darkness of Frollo's tower chamber one might think oneself within the bowels of the deepest cavern far below the earth. A single large candle dripping in streams of hot wax provided the chamber with its only source of light. Only one light was needed. For amidst the long shivering shadows cast eerily upon stone wall and wooden beam there stood only one figure just before the candle. The figure of Frollo hovered over a heavy book upon a stand. It might have been thought that Frollo stood deep in prayer save that the darkness in his eyes hardly reflected a meditation on holy thoughts.

For a long while Frollo remained above his book. The only sound was the occasional turning of the page, but it slowly became evident that Frollo was not the only being in the room. Deep within the shadowy gloom a presence began to hover, and Frollo began to sense it himself. An annoyed flicker flashed in his eyes.

"You shouldn't have come here," he said dangerously, and he slammed the book shut.

After the candlelight wavered from the action and the flame settled back into place, the cover revealed the book to be a tome of dark and forbidden knowledge.

"You wanted me to come," replied the voice in the darkness in a tone that was almost amused.

"I said no such thing," said Frollo without looking behind him. "You're a repulsive heretic."

"You would not have that book," said the man now coming into the light of the candle and revealing himself as a short, rather unassuming figure clothed in a long black hood and robe, "if you were not waiting for me." An unexplainable repulsiveness emanated from the man despite his exterior, and it was something beyond the obnoxious conceit in his light voice. "Besides," he went on. "I've heard it suggested by your own lips that you have heretical thoughts yourself—or at least quite unholy ones…and it goes well beyond the mere intrigue of harmless alchemy in your youth."

At last the archdeacon turned to the man, but he had nothing to say. He leered in his looming owlish way that made most shudder before his might, but the hooded man did not appear in the least bit intimidated.

"Not to mention that the young knight Pierre Giroux," said the hooded man, "foolish as he may be, is correct in his saying that there is no way that a little girl could have pierced Phoebus through with his own sword."

"Judith did cut off the head of Holoferneswith a woman's wiles, after all, but in this case with witchcraft, Monsieur Ombre."

In silence, M. Ombre turned his covered head into the direction of the book and nodded.

"Do you really believe that?" he asked. "Young Phoebus could have squashed her like a gnat, and a gnat she had been drawn to a flame. We both know what sort of a man Phoebus was and why the girl followed him. You always knew, but you looked aside."

"I was not about to ruin the honor of his father."

"Who was similar in nature as we both know quite well," retorted Ombre.

"Captain Phoebus did his job well," Frollo insisted.

"Would the Holy Father approve of that?" Ombre laughed. "Would God?"

Wrapping his arms calmly behind his back, Frollo replied, "I have nothing to prove to you."

M. Ombre lifted a grimy outstretched paw of a hand. "And yet…"

"What?"

"The girl?"

Frollo stiffened and a sort of tingle went down his spine. "What about her."

"You fear her."

" _Fear_ her?" Frollo scoffed.

"Then you _want_ her," hissed M. Ombre.

"What are you suggesting?" asked Frollo warningly.

M. Ombre merely stared again quite unperturbed like some lazy eyed goblin under the shadow of his hood.

"I did nothing," said Frollo.

"You wanted to keep her here. How does that make you any different from Phoebus?"

"What happened to Captain Phoebus was his own fault," sniffed Frollo. "I warned him."

"Certainly," agreed M. Ombre, "but the girl …"

"Leave."

"You don't need help with your book?" asked M. Ombre. "Or is that why you need the gypsy child?"

Stiffening with firmer resolve, Frollo said, "Get out, M. Ombre."

"All that you vowed to keep clean from for the sake of your brother. All that you vowed to uphold upon taking this position in place of your brother …"

"I can't control what I feel. I've done nothing to her. Would to God that I did not feel as I do!" thundered Frollo.

"Except you did condemn her to death for a crime you know that she did not commit," said M. Ombre with a shrug. "Like so many others too powerless to contend with you."

"I would have freed her."

"For a price," M. Ombre hissed like a snake wrapping itself around its prey.

"She escaped," retorted Frollo. "Like the witch she is."

"You know she's not a witch," said M. Ombre. "A pagan, yes, but not a witch. Its only to ease your conscience about using her."

"I would just as soon kill _you_ ," growled Frollo between his teeth.

"Ah!" exclaimed M. Ombre. "You admit it."

"I admit nothing."

"Have it your way."

"I intend to."

"So you intend to go and find the girl?" asked M. Ombre. "What about your duties? What about your _brother_?"

"Leave him out of this!" snapped Frollo. "I want you to leave completely. Now."

"Then I'll just take the book with me," said M. Ombre lightly as he reached a hand to take it from its stand.

Frollo slammed his hand upon it, and M. Ombre hesitated mildly.

"Fate has laid it before me," said Frollo darkly.

"Fate… or temptation?" asked M. Ombre smiling queerly. "Have you no faith in your God?"

"I gave up my whole life for God," said Frollo. "For my brother and God. I got nothing as a result. Never a moment's peace in my restless soul."

"You have not prayed?"

"I prayed to be relieved of this cursed lust for human flesh," said Frollo staring deep into the flame of his candle. "To be relieved of the bewitching power of that demoness sent to torment me. For the sake of my pride. For the sake of my honor. But some men are doomed forever to fail as Fate commands."

"Ah, yes, the denial of free will and such a heresy … and what about your _other_ lusts?"

"OUT!"

With a finger like a scepter, Frollo pointed with the power of a Roman Emperor towards the chamber door, and as dark and terrible as the pharaohs of Egypt or the king of the Huns who once surrounded Paris.

But M. Ombre did not show the faintest trace of fear. He grew a tad more sober and his cheeky smile had vanished; he looked annoyed if anything, but he did as commanded. With a careless shrug but a polite bow, M. Ombre replied, "As you wish, your honor, but you may want me if you desire to use that book properly."

Frollo said nothing, for he had returned his attention to the bright glow of his flame.

With a quicker second bow, M. Ombre exited the room, and he seemed to bring an aura of otherworldliness with him as he left. Although still dark, drab, and atmospheric, the chamber seemed to be more what it was again: just an ill lit chamber with an ill tempered man standing before a meager candle and a bookstand.

Frollo's eyes fell upon the book once more, and opening it, he found a page of incantations to ungodly spirits. Glancing at it with a look that might have been described as disdain, he lifted a finger to turn the page, but just as he did, he changed his mind and closed the book altogether. Interrupting his deep brooding was the light and hopeful sound of someone singing echoing within the towers.

#

Just a little earlier than Frollo's hearing of the singing, in a warmly lit makeshift room in the chilly bell tower beneath the bells, Quasimodo was seated upon his stool. Late afternoon would soon give way to early evening as the sun sank low not quite taking its leave behind the city. So it was just in time before having to light candles that Quasimodo finished painting his latest piece over which he felt more satisfied than he usually felt with his work. Holding it delicately so as not to disturb the paint, he set the figure down to dry upon his table. Its resemblance to the gypsy La Esmeralda was more than most of the other figures to their real life counterparts. The attention to detail was perfect save for the doll-like proportions.

Leaning over his table then and gazing at the gleaming wet paint which brought life to that once lifeless block of wood, he smiled dreamily, and his sigh most content.

After a moment or so he turned out the window at the beautiful colors now forming over the city. Orange, red, and pink— a glorious display of the bright paints of God!

As the colors deepened, he took from a shelf near at hand the parchment of his recent poetry. His heart near to bursting with the beauty around him both manmade and God-made, he put at last a tune to his words. First it was soft and a little awkward, but after a few tries he was satisfied and began to sing with more confidence and luster. It was the shaping of a melody of his own composition, which he had hummed without words before today. Now the poem had a melody, and the melody had solidity. Its coming together he hoped would symbolize his own life coming together in the promising near future.

" _The hope of being whole,_

 _For that elusive soul,_

 _Was long ago snatched from my sight._

 _Because for me there was no light._

 _Never was it known_

 _That light was found in stone._

 _As stone I am_

 _My life's a sham._

 _Yet now a hope, though dim_

 _A prayer, a miracle hymn:_

 _Has Good God pitied me?_

 _Is she a sign; the sweet beauty …?"_

#

Below meanwhile in the quietude of the church, Fr. André too could hear the faint sound of someone singing.

"What's that?" he asked the altar boy near at hand.

"Oh, that's probably Quasimodo singing," replied the boy with a shrug.

"Really?" asked Fr. André, for Quasimodo had not been in much of a mood for singing since the day after Fr. André's arrival, so it was quite new to him.

"Some boys think it's something unnatural, but I know it's Quasimodo," said the altar boy, Timothée by name. "He used to sing more often. All the time."

"Oh?"

#

After a short pause as though an accompaniment of a flute or guitar prepared him for another round Quasimodo began again.

" _The goodly rarity!_

 _Would that she'd see your purity._

 _Through her have you revealed_

 _That from a dark past I've been healed?_

 _Could this be self-conceived?_

 _I pray I'm not deceived._

 _Tell me on this lovely night_

 _I need not doubt my heart's delight …_

#

It was about this time that Fr. André had climbed high enough along the steps to hear the words more clearly. With a furrowed brow of many questions and thoughts, the little priest looked up and could not help but ask himself, "Half witted …?" as he heard the last of the song clearly and on a strong voice that was not by any means out of tune:

 _That at last I am made whole,_

 _That what I feel is in my soul:_

 _(Let not my hope rift)_

 _Her glow is a gift;_

 _(Let not my hope rift)_

 _My life is a gift …_

 _Tell me, tell me on this night_

 _I need not doubt my heart's delight_

 _That at last I am made whole,_

 _That what I feel is in my soul …_

A clearing of a throat interrupted Fr. André's concentration; though the song had ended just before. Spinning around Fr. André looked up and saw exactly who he expected to see standing above him on the stairs, but that did not keep him from showing a start.

"Your honor!" exclaimed the priest.

"May I help you with something?" asked Frollo rather ominously.

"Well, no, I—" Fr. André fumbled and tried again. "I was just … well, I mean. Did you hear—?"

 _DONG…! DONG…! DONG…! DONG…!_

"Time for us to leave, abbé," said Frollo more to his calm nature. "That thought will have to pass. The bell ringer is never late."


	13. Chapter 13

THIRTEEN

From a slow pace, Pierre Giroux came to a stop within the square. He took no note in the hooded figure watching from the cathedral, nor did he notice the figure begin to climb down from the tower heights before it disappeared. His attention was at the moment quite preoccupied on a familiar beggar across the street, who although seemed to be minding his own business with a rusted cup held out in front of him begging from a passerby, for just a moment as Giroux had been riding past he thought that he had glanced at him. Now, this might not have been a strange thing. After all, a knight riding upon a horse did arouse attention, but this particular beggar was known for being blind, and he had looked Pierre directly in the face for just a split second with keen recognition.

The king of truands had sent someone to keep an eye on him for certain; though he never before this day would have thought anything of this particular frequenter of the square. He had known about him since before this year's Feast of Fools, and he always seemed a strange solitary old man. But with that one glance, his suspicion was aroused and forever he would doubt him now. He was a lookout for the square and that was why Clopin Trouillefou knew so much about the goings on in Paris, Giroux guessed. He probably had lookouts posted everywhere while making their earnings begging on the side.

As the knight examined the man now, begging as he always had, he saw too that there was something about the beggar that looked a little more than even a spy. If he did not know better Giroux would have thought the beggar related to Clopin somehow. He resembled him immensely in figure and in certain body language despite being hidden beneath a poor and shaggy exterior. It was just the sort of exterior which could hide a head of shoulder-length black hair and a short black goatee and a powerful and bold face …

Pierre frowned.

Dismounting his horse, he had the firm purpose of approaching the beggar.

He did not know what he was going to say or do, but never had he the chance to figure that out. As he left his horse a good few paces, he sensed someone close behind him, and suspecting some sort of treachery he immediately spun around only to come across the hooded figure from the tower leaping in fright at being discovered. The knight was quite surprised himself to see the bell ringer, for he had seen him well enough at his public whipping to know it was him. It seemed as though he had been attempting to tuck something into Ensoleillé's saddle.

Sir Giroux took a step towards the bell ringer, but Quasimodo quickly set down his letter along with a parcel and fled away to the shelter of the cathedral.

"Hey, wait!" called the knight. "What are you doing?"

Quasimodo froze, and seemed to give in to the fact that as he had already been caught in the act that there was no use in running now. Uneasily he turned up towards the knight as Giroux stooped down to investigate what he had left for him.

After glancing behind his shoulder at the beggar a moment, Sir Giroux followed Quasimodo into the shadows of Notre Dame and undoing the paper surrounding the object with the note, he saw that it was a little wooden bird with a loop balanced in the middle of its back in order to be hung up somewhere and a string was strung through it.

"What's this for?" asked Giroux very quietly.

"I …" Quasimodo started and fumbled a little before clearing his throat and starting again. "I didn't mean any trouble, monsieur. I just hoped you would … take that."

Giroux made a face. "What?"

"To La Esmeralda," said Quasimodo with a bit more confidence. "Because you know where she is."

Giroux held a finger to his lip for the boy to keep his voice down, and his annoyance was only too evident making Quasimodo look uneasy again as he pulled up the hood higher over his head. He shifted from one foot to the other and looked down at the ground.

"Where did you hear that?" Giroux whispered resisting the urge to look at the beggar behind him again.

"Nowhere," the bell ringer insisted. "I … Please. I meant no harm," he said again. "But I saw you follow her, and since you didn't capture her I figured you were a friend. Besides. You were the one who helped her to get sanctuary. I only wanted to give her a gift, and I didn't know how to give it to her any other way."

Unfolding the note, Pierre read the words, _Please, Sir Pierre, would you be so kind as to give this gift to La Esmeralda. Tell her it is from the one who she so kindly took pity on in his gratitude._

— _Quasimodo of Notre Dame._

The knight could not help but smile as he folded the note back up.

"I will," he told the bell ringer, and Quasimodo's relief bloomed like a flower. Tension eased and a smile formed on his face as he let out a sigh. "But perhaps you don't quite understand the seriousness of what you are asking me to do. She's in a very dangerous situation."

"Oh," said Quasimodo, and he nodded. "Yes. Well, if it's too much trouble you could tell me where she is, and I will take it to her myself …"

Leaning down towards him, the knight said, "She's in the Court of Miracles in the slums of Paris."

"Court of Miracles?" asked Quasimodo. "What's that? Are there relics there? Is it like the Hill of Martyrs where the Romans decapitated St. Denis before his miraculous walk preaching the word of God with his head detached?"

Pierre waved his hand aside. "No, no. It's not like that. It's where people who while they're in town appear to be crippled or blind …" Here the knight glanced over once more despite himself to where he had seen the beggar, and he had apparently vanished into thin air. "And when they go home to the court they are suddenly apparently well."

"But they aren't?" asked Quasimodo rather confused.

"They only pretend to be ill in the first place," whispered Pierre, but straightening up again he said, "I will take your gift, _Monsieur des Cloches_."

Quasimodo smiled, and then after a moment of reflection asked seriously, "Is there anything you can do to help her, sir? I suppose the guards of Paris are still looking for her. If there's anything I can do I will do all in power. I promise you. It's not much but—"

"I don't know about that," said Giroux with a slight grin. "After that escape from the tower, I'd say you're a most valuable friend. Yes, I saw, but I didn't tell anyone. We're both on the same side, I think." He paused. "I'll let you know if there's anything you can do … If I can find you again."

"I'm always in the bell tower," offered Quasimodo.

Pierre nodded as he glanced up at the towers looking rather ominous against the gray sky.

"Yes," he said, "I know where you live, and that's the problem."

For a moment he thought he saw something move just below the towers in the gallery, but it must have only been a trick of the flight of a bird from the head of a grotesque. Yet as he glanced back at Quasimodo who had followed his gaze upwards, the boy seemed shaken by the movement too, or maybe it was only that in lifting his head it revealed too much of his deformed features. He bent his head low again suddenly and pulled up his hood with a shiver.

"I should go …" he said more ominously than the towers, and he slipped away.

Sir Giroux did not keep him, but tucking the trinket and note away he climbed back upon his horse.

#

Once up on the balcony again, Quasimodo quickly hurried into his tower. He raced up the steps and into his cloistered cell where he sat down immediately and picked up a book. Seconds afterwards he leapt up again however as he remembered his hood. He had just slipped the hood back onto its hook when he heard the undeniable footsteps of his master approaching after he had opened and closed the tower door. Again Quasimodo slid onto his stool and hovered over his book upon the table so that by the time Frollo reached the top of the steps, Quasimodo might have looked like he had been seated there quite some time, that is, if he had not looked so disheveled.

"Ah, Quasimodo," said Frollo with a slow smile that dissipated quickly as he gave a somber nod. "Studying. _Bon_. I hope that's going well."

"Oh, yes, master," said Quasimodo with a nod that was perhaps too hasty.

"Well," said Frollo in a leisurely manner as though he had all the time in the world in quite a contrast to Quasimodo, "I'll let you finish up and then I'd like to speak with you about an important matter."

"Oh no, master. If it's important."

Again Frollo smiled, and he strolled fully into the room. He sat down in a chair near to Quasimodo, and he said frankly, "Yes. I wanted to apologize to you."

Quasimodo was quite taken aback.

Apologize? To him? He could not imagine what for, and feeling quite overwhelmed with confusion he asked him, "For what, master?"

"For neglecting you of late," said Frollo. "I haven't been here to guide you in these turbulent times of your adolescence. I plan to change that now. As the father I should be."

He looked quite serious too in a manner that Quasimodo had never seen in his master before. He heart swelled and he almost felt tears in his eyes to know that his master loved him so and felt that badly about something that Quasimodo had not really thought about at all.

"Master, I … I never felt slighted," said Quasimodo kindly.

"It wounds me as a father," said Frollo and Quasimodo closed his eyes. "It wound me as father, I say, to know that you've been keeping secrets."

Quasimodo's eyes flew open and a feeling of dread fell upon him like a chill wind freezing him to the core. He could only stare at his master speechlessly, but Frollo was not waiting for a response yet anyway.

"I blame myself," the master went on. "I haven't been supportive. I've been preoccupied with so many other things lately, and you've been left to fend for yourself."

"Oh," breathed Quasimodo still not quite out of his shock and not quite knowing what he said to Frollo he insisted, "I've had plenty to eat, master."

"I meant to the benefit of our relationship," said Frollo, "as father and son. I saw you outside today … and after what happened last time I feared the worst! I may not have been able to save you from an angry mob, poor creature, this time around."

"Oh, master!" exclaimed Quasimodo, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to worry you. It's just that I was …" Quasimodo faltered and settled back down upon his stool. He wrung his sweaty hands and swallowed hard upon a dry throat. "I was …. I …"

"What's troubling you, Quasimodo?" asked Frollo with deep concern, and he stood up and placed his hand upon the hump in his adopted son's back. "You know I'm always here for you since the moment I rescued you from death as an infant."

"I …" Quasimodo began, but again he faltered. In the form of his master the heat of another human being's body against his own was as comforting and warming as an icicle down one's tunic.

"Remember what I said about lying," said Frollo.

"I … I just don't want you to be upset."

"Why should I be?" asked Frollo glancing idly upon a certain new figure upon the table, a figure that resembled very much a well known and talked about gypsy girl. He turned again to Quasimodo who knew exactly which figure his master had been looking at. "I cannot expect you to be anything more than what you are, after all. Tell me, and I will help you, not punish you. Does it have anything to do with the girl that was here in the cathedral not too long ago?"

"What makes you think that, master?" asked Quasimodo lamely.

"Well," said Frollo coming just a tad closer so that the heat of his breath blew at the ends of Quasimodo's red hair. "She's a child of gypsies. The people that killed your parents."

"But it wasn't her who did it," Quasimodo protested quietly.

"She's a child of witches and fortune tellers. Not to mention a very lovely and bewitching figure." Again as Frollo spoke he looked upon the doll, but with a very different sort of expression from the first, an intensity which disturbed Quasimodo greatly gleamed in Frollo's eyes as he leaned over the table enough for Quasimodo to see him; though he did not know quite why in bothered him so. "I don't blame you if you're the one who helped her to escape. I just want the truth." He turned once more to the boy. "The truth sets one free, after all. Have you seen her since you've helped her escape?"

Quasimodo lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut. "No, master."

"Has Sir Pierre?"

"Master?" asked Quasimodo timidly. "You don't believe that she's the one who killed Sir Phoebus, do you?"

"She was the only one with him."

"She's not like that!" Quasimodo insisted, and Frollo at last lifted his hand from the boy's back. "She wouldn't hurt anyone! And she loved Sir Phoebus!"

"Well then!" said Frollo with an understanding nod. "She has nothing to fear. God's justice will prevail. Where is she that we may calmly settle this matter?"

Quasimodo considered this briefly. Disloyalty to his master was something he hated. Not trusting his master he hated more, but the thought of Esmeralda hanging he hated worst of all.

"I don't know," he said.

"Really?"

Guiltily Quasimodo shook his head.

"Well, perhaps I was mistaken then," said Frollo rising into an upright position, and he glanced briefly out over Paris before returning to the chamber to pat Quasimodo gently on the hump in his back. "I'll just let you think about it for a while. Maybe something will come to you. After all, I should have known better than to think that the boy I took in and adopted as my son would betray my trust in him and not remain always my faithful Quasimodo."

And with that, Frollo withdrew.

After a moment of still silence, Quasimodo slowly buried his face in his arms against the table.

#

Far from the cathedral of Notre Dame La Esmeralda stayed within the confines of the slums of the Court of Miracles. Without being able to leave to support herself in dancing, she turned to working at the court, which was a difficult task for most people there had the firm philosophy that what they earned they had the right to keep, and few hired anyone to work for them for things they could easily do themselves. Not that dancing in Paris had ever gotten her much save on certain occasions, and the king of thieves himself had been quite busy recently so that she could not go directly to him. She would have otherwise. Clopin always had good and even often fatherly advice for anyone in need in his court.

But on this particular evening she took it upon herself to dance veiled in the darker corners of the city. No one could recognize her veiled and few would recognize the boy who played her music for her. Thus she set out, but she never got the chance to dance, for she saw quite to her surprise a familiar figure walking down those same back streets, and she thought she would faint with the fright of seeing a ghost.

"Phoebus …" she breathed.

The boy turned abruptly and saw him too, and a worried look puckered his otherwise smooth young brow.

"La Esmeralda," said the boy as he watched the man with uncertainty. After all it was that man which caused the whole problem in the first place, and if he was not a ghost he had been hiding the fact that he was alive.

Esmeralda however was emboldened to approach him, for her heart was so relieved to see him that she did not yet think about the fact that Phoebus was hiding. She only asked the boy to wait for her while she went after Phoebus to ask him what had happened. Reluctant though the boy was, he agreed to wait. The disapproval on his face did little to make the girl hesitate.

Following into the darkening street she found Phoebus entering the same building where the phantom had come to try to murder him. She trembled a little at the memory, but it also encouraged her onward. With a frown she went to the door and after a moment she knocked.

If only she had looked before she knocked. If she had she would have seen truly what sort of man Phoebus was before alerting him to her presence. As she looked into the window now anxiously for Phoebus to come and answer her knock, she saw him seated on a plush cushion. One girl knelt on one side of him. Another girl laid her head upon his shoulder in a sort of swoon and touched his bandaged wounds on his side where he had been stabbed by the phantom. They were both foreigners, and they seemed far wealthier than she was. They were clean and glistening with hair washed and oiled with strong flowery scents and sandalwood perfumes which reached the window easily, and Phoebus puckered his lips to both girl in turn touching them as one drunken in such pleasures.

A bolt of lightning struck the heart of La Esmeralda, and terror gripped her body limp so that she could do nothing but sink with nausea towards the ground.

 _Phoebus had not loved her._

This one thought consumed her like a wave over her head, except for one other that followed soon after.

 _He surely loves no one …_

Then she heard footsteps approaching the door, and she was woken immediately from her spell. Leaping to her feet, she did not flee in time to keep Phoebus from seeing who she was.

" _You_!" he gasped.

Rage flashed in her eyes, but Esmeralda had no chance to use it as he lifted his sword towards her.

"It's she!" he then shouted at the top of his lungs for all the street to hear him.

Esmeralda began to run, and she saw her boy companion waiting for her around the corner urging her onwards frantically.

" _C'mon, c'mon, c'mon_!" he hissed.

"The murderous gypsy with the reward on her head!" Phoebus kept shouted. "Don't let her escape!"


	14. Chapter 14

JMJ

FOURTEEN

"Sir Giroux!"

The knight looked up in surprise to see the boy running towards him, especially as he recognized the young gypsy as the performance companion of Esmeralda.

He had been making his way back home to bed from an already dismal sort of business he had been forced into, making him unable to give Esmeralda her gift. But he knew at once that there may be no time to give the poor girl anything if the boy's news was as bad as it looked.

"It's you!" cried the boy in a heavy accent. His face was red with emotion. Anger in his eyes, he shoved a stray tear aside with a palm and was determined to let no more fall. "They took Esmeralda! You swore you would not let her come to harm!"

"Where is she?" Giroux demanded.

#

Upon his low bed in a side room and away from the cloisters where monks slept, Claude Frollo slept not in fitful repose. His dreams were of a haunting sort and troubled him into fits of twitching and muttering both in anger and in fear. No doubt within his thoughts he was screaming at the top of his lungs, but in the darkened cell he was only barely whispering. A sudden knock upon his door, and as a spring he was released and jumped violently upright with a queer sort of growl.

The knock came again, and after a pause in which he was breathing very heavily, he glowered at the door and wrenched himself from bed. He tossed a robe over his shoulders and threw open the door only to glare upon the one he had banished from his sight. Outside there was shouting and commotion, but for the moment it seemed that only the strange figure and Frollo existed.

"M. Ombre," Frollo said darkly. "How did you get in here? How _dare_ you enter here?"

"They captured the girl," said the hooded man with a shrug. "The one you want, right? La Esmeralda? I figured you'd want to know …"

Frollo shoved him aside and slammed the door shut. However he was out within moments fully dressed for the occasion. The shouting outside would have roused him eventually anyway. Indeed some of the monks from the monastery were waking up, but M. Ombre was now nowhere in sight.

#

At the palace of justice, a place like a second home to the once official judge of Paris, Claude Frollo was still an honorary member. In fact he was the most honored among the judicial staff. He hardly had to say a word to come in and go out as he pleased or to have his will done. Paris was his, it seemed. The only person, some said, more powerful in the city was the king of France himself.

Thus though the trial was conducted by the official judge and not the more powerful unofficial judge, Frollo had a power that his presence did not require. The official judge, it must be told, was handpicked especially by Frollo after he had to officially resign. Old, crotchety, and at least half deaf, the judge was as stubborn in his own right as he was loyal to the now archdeacon. Frollo could bend the man to his will as easily as he could tie a rope around his waist. The trial had been placed before all others ahead of it. It was conducted quickly and to the point, and the official judge did not have to be told to settle on the verdict which he knew would please the archdeacon.

There were no surprises to Frollo in his own realm. No surprises, except that as he came down into the cells where La Esmeralda was kept, and where he assumed there would be no one else save for an easily dismissed guard, he saw Sir Pierre Giroux. He came just in time too to hear Giroux promise that the misunderstanding would be fixed once and for all if it was the last thing the knight did.

Although inwardly furious, Frollo pretended he had heard nothing as he waited a few moments for Giroux to depart. Both men exchanged disapproving leers, but neither spoke as Giroux passed by on up the steps. _No better than Phoebus, I'll wager_ , thought Frollo darkly, and he waited a long time too after Giroux had left before he reached the cell where the girl was kept. A guard stood not too far away.

"Thierry," he said quietly.

The guard nodded and moved closer to the respected personage.

"Your honor," Thierry said.

"What did the knight want here?"

"Just to lift the gypsy's spirits it seemed like to me, your honor," said the guard. "And he gave her a present. It was a harmless wooden trinket so I let it go, especially as Sir Giroux is a respectable man, Monsieur l'Archidiacre."

"Si …" murmured Frollo carelessly. "You did well. Leave for a moment, Thierry."

"Are you sure?"

Frollo had but to glance at Thierry in the face to show his surety. With a bow the guard went to the door.

"Stay nearby, though," said Frollo after him.

The guard nodded hastily, and Frollo waited until he was out of sight.

Once no other man was in sight of him, a transformation took place, which seemed to have been painful to have held back as long as he had. Like a werewolf he turned from a respectable man into a terrible beast. The predatory glint in those windows to the soul was as one possessed and it caused all his features to grow sharper and deadly. Every edge of his face was as a blade; though none more deadly than those piercing eyes as he made his way to the girl's cell.

La Esmeralda was at the bars watching like a caged bird before an approaching snake. The wooden trinket was already hanging about her neck as though a display of her desire to fly away before it was too late.

"La Esmeralda?"

Her green eyes flashed towards the dark figure with a frown.

"Yes?" she asked stepping away from the bars as Frollo came too near for comfort.

"I'm here to give you a chance for freedom," replied Frollo as emotionless as a stone brick.

Esmeralda hesitated. "Why?" she asked. "Don't you think I killed him? He's alive. I saw him."

"But attempted murder is viewed the same way as successful murder, especially to murder such an influential and highly respected lord's son, and a lord, who for honor's sake, hid the event and even his son's survival until the attempted murderer was caught. It doesn't matter anymore anyway. They have already decided your sentence. You were present at the trial. You heard what they said. It cannot be changed easily."

"But I didn't do it," said Esmeralda. "It was another man. They wouldn't listen."

Frollo nodded solemnly. "Do you wish me to help you, _ma jeune fille_?"

"How?"

"I can persuade people of many things, including, possibly, your innocence."

"You're the judge of Paris," said Esmeralda. "Everyone knows that. It would take only a word, I think, for you to set me free if you desired it."

"On the contrary," said Frollo putting a hand idly upon the bars. "It will be very difficult, and you would have to be under my care."

"You mean keep me in the bell tower too?" Esmeralda demanded with evident disdain.

"Don't be stupid," snorted Frollo annoyed, but his face changed into a most disturbing slow smile, not malicious per se, but as predatory as a smile could look, and Esmeralda had a guess before he spoke what sort of arrangement Frollo had in mind. After all, it would be the only reason why he would send the guard away. "As my woman … _petite mignonne_ …"

For a moment, the girl could not hide the horror and disgust in her face, but creasing her brow into a determined grimace she said very calmly, "Many people during my life have offered me such protection, and what I say to them I say to you. I would rather have no protection at all than yours."

Frollo stiffened. His fingers twitched as did one eye lid.

"Are you sure that's your answer?" he asked very dangerously.

"I'll never change my mind!" shouted the girl.

"You little witch," growled Frollo through clenched teeth between the bars.

Esmeralda spit in his face.

With another low growl, Frollo wiped his face as with a bear's paw. He stepped back a few paces and turned roughly back into the direction of the bars.

"Then you'll be hanged," he told her.

"I'd rather _die_ ten times than be with you," declared the girl, tears in her face red with rage and fear; Frollo was marching away and already opening the door. " _You're_ probably the hooded monster who tried to kill that wretch! You're a devil monk! And Phoebus is a monster himself!"

 _SLAM!_

Every door that followed Frollo was slammed in much the same manner. Out of the palace of justice he stormed and back into Notre Dame. Up into the tower he spiraled and aimed for his dark chamber. But he stopped as he saw upon the steps also aiming for the chamber door, no doubt only to knock, was a horrendously miserable mass known as Quasimodo.

Still breathing heavily from rage and the speed with which he tore his way up here, Frollo straightened himself and crossed his arms as he glared upon the boy demandingly.

"Master …" said Quasimodo cowering like a mouse before those terrible owl eyes, and he twiddled his fingers uneasily.

"What is it, Quasimodo?" asked Frollo calmly.

Looking somewhat encouraged by the tone, Quasimodo lifted his head and said, "About our last conversation, master. I … I wanted to tell you …"

"Did you?" said Frollo with immediate disinterest.

"I'm …" Quasimodo said lowering his head again. "I'm sorry, master. I lied to you. I _did_ let her go, and I know where she is. It's just I only feared for her. You must understand. She's innocent. I know it. Can she not be vindicated? And can you not forgive me, master? Have I no way to redeem myself? I just want her to be safe …"

For many moments Frollo stared at the boy as though still with little interest; though the fact that his attention remained upon his adopted son proved he was only too interested.

"There is no redemption," he said at last almost casual in tone, but it seemed to strike Quasimodo like a roar of thunder.

"Master?" asked Quasimodo with a shudder.

"If there is indeed a god in heaven," retorted Frollo, his voice now quite dark enough to match his words, "he is a cruel master and there is no redemption — not for you or for me _alike_!" He thrust a finger up into the air and declared this statement as though to preach to the storm; then holding his hand claw-like down to Quasimodo very near the face he hissed, "We are forsaken."

As Frollo recuperated somewhat from his outburst, Quasimodo continued to cower with eyes wide upward at his master. His breathing had become shallow and uncertain as he made small gasps of breath through a mouth slightly ajar. Frollo leered in returned and sniffed with derision.

"Get out of my sight you spawn of worms," he growled. "I didn't want to have you. It was truly that fool. That fool of a brother of mine believed in fairytales. His fairytales did not save Jehan. His fairytales saved Benjamin himself not from death, nor changed my mind about you. He tricked me into it with his authority. Well. Now the authority is mine. By fate I have ensnared it, and I'll use it as I please."

He paused; though Quasimodo did not move hardly at all except to focus his good eye upon him, studying him with a look as though he might throw up.

"Just move," grumbled Frollo, and he pushed the boy out of his way.

After creaking open the door to his chamber, he closed it quickly behind him again without looking back. Hardly three paces inward too and he ran into a set of widely grinning teeth so that finally Frollo broke free from anger if only to back up against the door in surprise.

The hooded figure of the unmoving M. Ombre faced Frollo in the candlelit chamber in such a way that his eyes could not quite be seen beneath his hood, and his grin lowered into a sneer that was even more repulsive than his full grin.

"She said 'no', I'll take it …"

"Silence you!" Frollo hissed.

M. Ombre ignored him. "Then what shall you do? The hanging is tomorrow."

Closing his eyes with a cavernous crease in his sweaty brow he slowly took a knife from beneath his robes, and M. Ombre did not seem to notice.

"I told you to be _silent_!" Frollo growled.

He slashed the knife through M. Ombre's cloak straight into his chest, but he struck nothing solid. Even the robes had escaped Frollo's wrath. M. Ombre had vanished in an inky shroud. Only a sinister laugh echoing in Frollo's head remained, and Frollo growled like an animal as he stabbed his knife into his bookstand.

#

Sir Pierre Giroux pounded the table in front of him. "You _must_ reopen the trial!"

The official judge only stared at him as one might pity a fool too stupid to know that nothing comes out of one's nose but snot.

"You have to know she's innocent!" Giroux insisted.

"It is impossible," said the judge unconcerned as he folded his hands together. "Captain of the guard or not, Sir Giroux, it is impossible for you to have authority to reopen the trial, especially before tomorrow's execution."

"Then I appeal to the king!" shouted Giroux.

"The king," retorted the judge wrinkling his nose, "isn't in Paris as you well know. He won't return until late next week. There is no time to reach him."

"Have you no sense of justice, your honor!"

The judge turned away. "Goodnight, Sir Giroux."

Forced to leave the palace of justice, Giroux kicked a large gravel stone as he made his way to Ensoleillé. Then as he lifted his head a little he saw Esmeralda's accompaniment. The boy was standing in the street like a shadow, but as he looked up at Giroux in return he had a very soulful look as though the young woman which had been captured had been his own flesh and blood. Indeed she probably was the only family the boy really knew, but Giroux was not thinking so much about that as about the boy's company and kingdom.

"Come here, boy," said Sir Giroux.

The boy approached hesitantly.

"There is one king to appeal to," he told him.

"Clopin?" asked the boy.

Giroux nodded. "And I would like you to come with me."

The boy frowned and turned to Ensoleillé with an uncertain pout.

"On the horse?" he asked, for he had never been on one before.

"Yes," said the knight. "Is that a problem for you?"

"Uh …"

#

The boy gave a shout as Ensoleillé leapt through the archway into the Court of Miracle. He had to leap over a damaged portion of the road, and they came to a stop in the middle of the court. Giroux dropped from his horse and reached out for the boy who, despite the situation, was smiling.

"I'd like that again sometime!"

Giroux smiled, but said nothing as he helped the boy to the ground.

The commotion, naturally, did not go unnoticed by the men of the court and they had Pierre grabbed yet again before either boy or knight knew what was happening.

"Clopin has not yet returned!" growled one man to another.

All the captors completely ignored the boy though he did not leave the knight, but then the boy could not protest and only watched helplessly as the men roughly tied up the knight as a robber caught in the act.

"Then we'll hold him until he does," hissed another.


	15. Chapter 15

JMJ

FIFTEEN

"And has he not?" retorted a familiar voice.

Even had the knight not been gagged he knew that speaking to them would have come to nothing anyway. They would not listen to him without their king present, except that the voice which had just spoken belonged to a man that also looked very familiar as he stood among a new company of men that had just emerged onto the scene, but not as possessing such a voice. It was the beggar of the square of Notre Dame, and as he leaned upon his walking stick with eyes which were anything but sightless, he smiled lightly and said, "Keep him for a moment and the king will call when he is ready."

The ruffians obeyed.

Pierre frowned darkly, and he remained overall very sour until he was called forth into the throne of the Truand King. Mere seconds after passing through the door of the Roman ruins into this half submerged chamber, the calm and careless voice of Clopin ordered for the gag to be removed. There Giroux beheld him upon a stone chair cushioned in soft Venetian pillows and set behind a table draped in gypsy cloth. The king himself was dressed as he had been the first time the knight and Clopin had been introduced. He sat upon his throne with a watchful eye, and his fingers drummed together as he leaned forward over his knees. His smile was downright deranged, and his brow as serene as untroubled water beneath his hat.

"I knew you were the beggar," said Pierre lightly.

Clopin shrugged, and instead of replying to the knight he turned to the boy who had followed the ruffians and Giroux close behind.

"Ah, master Djali," he said. "What have you dragged in? The husband of La Esmeralda. He's not been a very good husband now has he, leaving her to fend for herself?" Turning to the knight then, Clopin held up his hand and said with eyes closed in a majestic manner, "You understand, Sir Giroux. Foreign knights on horseback are not trusted within the borders of our court. It has happened more than once in the past that the king's men have come here on investigations, and I'm sorry to say that if you're looking for your wife, she's been captured, you know. She's to hang at dawn."

"Of course, I know that! That's why I came to you!"

Clopin nodded. "If you're concerned about the girl then why are you hanging around here? Why aren't you doing something instead of coming to me wasting time? I thought the knights were capable men."

"I've been trying to since her capture! Why aren't _you_ doing something about it if you already know?" demanded Giroux. "I thought that's why she joined the Court of Miracles! For protection!"

"She's accused of being a murderer and a witch," replied Clopin. "There's little I can do about that."

"I'm sure if you wanted to you could do _some_ thing," said Giroux. "If you're truly the Mad Terror, the king of truands! If you're anything that the tales claim you are!"

"Sir!" retorted Clopin with some annoyance. "I understand your distress, but I have other business at hand right now of a very delicate nature involving making the rest of my kingdom quite wealthy. I'm a king, for crying out loud! I'm the king of thieves. I protect people in our little haven here, true. We hide a fellow outcast better than the king of France can keep his horde like some fairy dragon, but beyond these borders my people _know_ the risks and _know_ to fend for themselves. Isn't that true, Djali? La Esmeralda knows this more than most."

"He's a man of his word," said the boy, though a little sullenly.

"But you _could_ save her!" the knight insisted.

"I have other concerns," said Clopin. "I can't just rile up my whole kingdom for one little gypsy girl."

"Well!" demanded Giroux. "Aren't you a gypsy?"

Annoyance fell away and Clopin's usual buoyancy returned as he smiled strangely upon Giroux like some living Pierrot cut from his strings. Leaning back leisurely, he lounged almost catlike as he stretched his sinewy limbs over his throne, and he threw one leg lazily over a stone chair arm.

"I'm whatever I want to be," he said leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

"Are you?"

"Well, I certainly have the background to pick and chose," said Clopin swirling a pointer finger above his head with ease.

"You don't look all that busy to me. You look like you're just hiding here in your little hovel when it would be a great success to your name to add to your infamous history if you stopped a hanging by freeing a girl with your clever wit. You won't even have me unbound the rest of the way, you coward."

Clopin shrugged without impression as he gazed up at the stars through an opening in his throne room ceiling. "You know she doesn't love you," he said. "She only married you to save you from death like a little girl taking in a lost fawn."

"Then for her doubly will I try to save her myself in return for her deed and leave you to cower here!" rejoined Giroux.

"If you're trying to rile me up, you're doing a very bad job," said Clopin after an impatient sigh, and he flashed an irritated eye in Giroux's direction before looking upwards again. "Do I look like an idiot? Call me mad and you'll be correct, but calling me an idiot is taking it much too far. It'll be amusing to watch you try to rescue her in some valiant knightly way."

"Does that mean you're not going to help me?"

"You're lucky I'm willing to let you leave here alive. After all, it's not like that was a legitimate marriage. You didn't say, 'I do.' That just doesn't do."

"Do you take anything seriously?" asked Giroux.

Clopin sniffed and stiffened somewhat. With full serious he leered upon the knight. "I don't own slave labor. I take that quite seriously." Here he repositioned himself upright again upon his seat. "Even if I wanted to help you, I'd have to give my subjects a proper incentive to want to risk their lives for a girl who has no relations. Even her foster parents are no more, and her real parents abandoned her on the steps of Notre Dame to be traded for a deformed child. She has no one that will be willing to go after her. Not even for marriage as I'm conversing now with her current husband."

"You said it wasn't a real marriage."

"It doesn't matter, does it?" demanded Clopin. "Anyway. You see my dilemma. I cannot with good reason order my men to do this. It's a betrayal of trust." He nodded to a few men at hand. "And it is not something that can be done alone— this sort of thing. It would take planning and cooperation and plenty of diversion."

" _I'd_ be a diversion!" declared the boy.

Clopin laughed carelessly.

"Fine …" Giroux growled. "Then release me."

"Can't you do _some_ thing?" asked the boy then quite imploringly but not quite begging as he bowed before his king. "You said so yourself that she's becoming like a daughter to you, and you know for me she is like the only sister and mother I ever known."

Clopin tapped his chin as he watched the knight leave, but he did not seem at first as though he had heard the child's pleads.

"Sir knight?" he said.

Glowering, the knight turned back to face Clopin.

"The hanging is in front of the cathedral, isn't it?"

Sir Giroux raised a suspicious brow.

"Yes!" said the boy quickly.

Clopin clasped his hands together and grinned. "Hmm … _Tiens_ , _tiens_!" he exclaimed. Turning to the ruffians who had dragged Giroux here, he said, "Men!"

The ruffians looked up.

"How would you like to storm an execution?" asked Clopin. "Master Djali's all up for it."

"With all due respect, your majesty," said an especially ruffled ruffian with a missing eye that was not false as most disfigurements were in the court. He bowed most humbly as he spoke and with the highest respect. "Like you said. The people of the court wouldn't want to risk their lives for one girl without profit in it."

With wide eyes Clopin motioned to the knight as an indication to him that he told him this would be true. Afterwards however, returning to the loyal subject, he bounced off his throne and looking more dramatic than ever he seemed to implore his ruffian with outstretched arms as to a beloved son.

"But what about the knightliness of this poor man here?" he performed with flare. "He has poured his heart and soul out in front of us all. Does no one care?"

" _C'est le vie_ ," muttered the ruffian.

Another agreed. "We all got problems."

A third lifted a finger. "Poverty."

A fourth crossed his arms. "Plague."

"Enemies," a short ferret-like man added at the end with a queer squeaky voice.

"What makes this circumstance different?" asked the second man.

"I heartily agree with you gentlemen," said Clopin with a strange sort of bow. "But what if there _was_ an incentive? What if I could guarantee reward?" He tapped his nose knowingly.

"What reward?" demanded Giroux.

No one paid the least bit attention.

"Such as?" asked the first ruffian squinting his remaining eye.

"That Monsieur l'Archidiacre will donate the reward with or without his permission. Every man for himself once the chaos ensues. After all, I think the good archdeacon owes us some long overdue charity. The Christians are hanging an innocent little girl outside their symbol, their great and mighty Notre Dame and she is not the first one!"

"Hail to the king of wisdom!" shouted the first ruffian and the others took up the cry.

"Well! Rally the others!" ordered Clopin clapping his hands together eagerly over the cheering of his men, and as they exited through the doorway the king of thieves himself came down to slit the rest of Giroux's bonds with one of his many small daggers.

The moment he did so, Giroux grabbed Clopin's dagger arm, but Clopin did not release the knife even if he did give a slight start. He glowered at the knight.

"You can't do this," said Giroux.

Clopin grinned dangerously and with his other hand he delicately pried the knight's hand away from his arm. "Don't you worry, sir knight," he said patting the knight's shoulder. "La Esmeralda will be quite safe. That is, if you don't interfere…"

"But the Notre Dame! You can't let these maniacs strip it!" Giroux protested.

"It's too late for that now," said Clopin, and he shrugged. "Are you coming?"

"Yes," Giroux growled.

#

On the balcony of his tower stood Quasimodo as still as stone and staring out into the night sky. A light breeze blew back his oily red hair revealing now and again out from under those heavy bangs a pair of vacant eyes blanker than some of the statues. For a while he had been sleeping, but he could not anymore. For a long time now he had stationed himself here like a grotesque. The chill in the air did nothing to faze him or force him back indoors. But whether outside or in, the boy had remained pretty much in this state of immobility and sluggishness of thought since his conversation with Frollo one night before.

A feeling of helplessness and confusion at last built up enough inside of him at present to let out a useless sigh, and he closed his eyes as he leaned his arms against the ledge in front of him.

"What's the matter, Quasimodo?" asked a familiar voice, but at least the voice did not belong to Frollo. Quasimodo knew it well enough as the voice of Reverie. With its voice like a sigh on the wind, it usually was the grotesque who spoke to him first when the stones began to liven up.

Opening his eyes again, Quasimodo could see it looking upon him with pity, but Quasimodo could find no words with which to respond to its concerns.

"Oh, he won't talk," snorted the sarcastic Basilisk. "He's less talkative than stone these days."

"What _is_ he?" asked Nord, the foolish gargoyle from below the balcony.

"It's hard to say," muttered Basilisk.

"Oh!" moaned Howler the gryphon. "He should have just taken his present to La Esmeralda himself!"

"What's that got to do with anything?" demanded Nord.

"He's a coward," said Basilisk. "That's what. He's afraid to show his face to her."

"Don't be so hard on him," sighed Reverie. "He's going through such turmoil right now. Look at the immensity of his heavy brow. An endless whirl of confusion and sorrows …"

"Will he ever come to?" asked Nord curiously.

"Well!" huffed Basilisk ruffling stone feathers. "If anyone were to ask my opinion, which everyone's too envious of my opinion to ask for, I'd say he would have been _way_ better off if he just ran off with Esmeralda that day he helped her escape! Sure, he did a good job with the rescue; I'm not denying that—"

"So brave," agreed Howler quietly and Reverie nodded in agreement.

" _Ahem_!" growled Basilisk. "But why didn't he just go with her. She likes him. Who wants to stay with that old pork sausage Frollo off his nut, when you could go with a girl like that?"

Quasimodo sighed and stared out across the city once again towards the hills now black in the darkness of predawn.

"Come now," said Reverie softly to the boy, for Quasimodo always stood closest to Reverie. "Say something. We're only trying to help you. Pay no attention to Basilisk."

"Hey!" snapped the one so named.

"Last time I listened to you guys," said Quasimodo in his sluggish melancholy, "I was tortured."

" _Tiens_!" exclaimed Basilisk. "And this isn't torture?!"

Reverie tried to block Basilisk's way, but Basilisk only pushed its head up higher above the other.

"Locked up in a tower your whole life by his honor, _Monsieur Dingue_? He's _more_ than off his nut this time! He doesn't even believe in his own cause anymore if ever did!" It paused and shrugged. "Nah, I doubt it."

"I don't know," moaned Quasimodo. "I don't know anything."

" _Pfft_ , yes you do!" retorted Nord.

Quasimodo frowned. "What's that?"

"Well, that you love the girl. Of course!" said Nord sounding quite pleased with himself.

"But I don't even know if she loves me back," said Quasimodo. "I don't even know what I am. Or if there's a God."

Nord began to laugh.

"If there's no God, kid, then what's the point of anything you do?" demanded Basilisk.

"There is none," Quasimodo sighed.

"Then you could escape Frollo," Reverie said like a dream ready to flee from Quasimodo if he was not careful. "Somewhere where that monster cannot reach you."

Nord gasped. "The Court of Miracles!"

"Duh!" said Basilisk making a mocking face and crossing its eyes. "God or not, there's no way that you should have to put up with a lunatic like Frollo."

"He's no friend of yours," agreed Howler.

Quasimodo shook his head and cringed. "I just can't believe that. He's taken care of me all these years."

"Enslaved you, you mean," huffed Basilisk.

"Even if I did leave, where would I go?!" demanded Quasimodo angrily. "I don't belong anywhere! What's why I don't even go down from the towers."

"Yeah, you do," muttered Basilisk.

" _Cough_!Court! _Cough_!Of! _Cough_!Miracles! _Cough_! _Cough_!" said Nord.

" _Esmeralda_ doesn't think badly of you," Reverie sighed.

Quasimodo nodded and relaxed against the stone rail again, but more thoughtful this time. "No … she's the kindest person I've ever known."

"She would help you," continued Reverie. "Her logic and kindness is the only clarity you've seen in so long … She's your angel, remember?"

"But I thought maybe she was sent by God," Quasimodo protested. "And if there is no God then who sent her?"

"Maybe God just isn't what Frollo or Notre Dame or anyone here says," said Nord carelessly.

"Right," said Reverie. "Maybe God isn't in these cold dark stone walls but out there." And here he pointed a finger out across Paris. "Where Esmeralda is …"

"He's got a point, kid," said Basilisk.

"Maybe God's giving you a sign to leave," said Howler.

"To find yourself," said Reverie.

"Old owl-butt can't be right," Nord laughed.

"Frollo's a kook!" said Basilisk.

"I don't even know where she is," said Quasimodo.

"True love always finds a way," sighed Reverie.

"Maybe her gypsy abilities will give you a psychic link!" exclaimed Nord giddily.

"Don't be stupid!" snapped Basilisk. "Psychic link?"

"I wonder what gypsy gods are like?" mused Howler with some apparent suspicion as it tapped its cringing jaw.

"The Court of Miracles!" sang Nord.

"Well, whatever life outside the cathedral is like we did always tell you," said Howler, "that you weren't a proper stone like us, and you won't survive here much longer. You're way too bendable for that."

Squeezing the tears from his eyes as he shut them tight, Quasimodo said, "I know." And he sniffled. "Please. Please just let me think. This isn't helping. It's just making it more confusing."

But the stones continued their remarks and bickering. Only Reverie stopped talking and looked after Quasimodo as, after a moment or two, the boy slowly took his leave from the balcony and made his way back inside the tower.

"We only want what will make you happy in this world, Quasimodo," he whispered softly after him. "And there is no future for you here as the bell ringer of Notre Dame …"

Quasimodo spun around, but a deafening silence had suddenly overtaken the balcony. The stones were only solid lifeless object in a growing fog.

Hesitating a little, Quasimodo then ducked inside the door. Up he climbed into his loft of a cell like a bird nest of one of the many doves that lived up here, save that Quasimodo never truly left it. Looking up at a round little window, he could just barely make out the silhouette of the figure of Archdeacon Benjamin. Looking away heavily Quasimodo sat down upon his stool before the table of figures and the model of Notre Dame. He thought of saying his promised prayers, which in the past had always helped to calm him in difficult situations, but this time he could not bring the Latin to his lips.

"I … I'm sorry, Archdeacon Benjamin, but it's just too hard. I can't do it anymore." His voice was distant and hollow as he touched the side of the bell tower on the model of Notre Dame. "I'm sorry… I have to get away… away from everything!"

In a burst of emotion he took a swipe over the table then and knocked some of the figures off onto the floor. With a choke he dropped his head into his hands.

"Everything Master ever said to me is a lie," he moaned. "Then what can I believe from a person who's now dead!?"

He stood up then suddenly, and after a moment or two he picked up his fallen figures and placed them gently onto the table again. One of them that had fallen had been the figure of himself. In the darkness it did not look like much, but he knew it was the hunchback of Notre Dame, for only his figure was so short, and lumpy. He set it down last of all and pushed it beside the figure of La Esmeralda, which too had to be set upright though she had not fallen to the floor.

Then turning away he grabbed his hood from its hook. Without looking back he returned to the balcony. With a rope in hand, he climbed up onto the roof and found the best position from which to throw it onto the nearest building unattached to the cathedral. His eyes were up upon the dim light beginning to speak of dawn. He did not know or think what he would do once he reached the ground, but just after he left Notre Dame to the city rooftops, he was stopped suddenly by a closer, dimmer but more flashing light than a dawn that had not yet broken.

Torchlight like lava spurts poured out beneath him, and he examined the scene to see that in the square in front of the palace of justice was a noose moving like a limp dead goose in a shop window. Then he saw for whom the noose of was for. Amidst the gathering crowd was led la Esmeralda bound towards the place of execution.

" _No_ …!" breathed Quasimodo.

As he ducked into the shadows of his new rooftop he saw Frollo amidst the company. Looking up with a strange sort of longing for a moment at the bell tower, he shuddered in his helplessness, but a sudden look of determination quickly followed. It was the expression of a decision firmly made.


	16. Chapter 16

JMJ

SIXTEEN

Wringing his hands and resisting the urge to pace, Fr. André could only listen to the commotion outside.

He had tried to reason with Frollo, but it had done no good. In his timid way, Fr. André knew he could do little good for anyone. The girl was innocent. Of course she was innocent! And as for Frollo, his determination to kill the girl was unfounded, unprecedented— unbelievable to say the very least!

Like Pierre Giroux, it had occurred to Pierre André to appeal to the king. Also like Giroux upon coming to face the fact that the king of France could not be reached whether he would listen or not, he thought of only one other king who would listen. He knew nothing about Clopin save what the stories told of him, but he knew of a King far closer to home.

Thus lighting a candle and bowing his head he bent down to pray before the altar of God and beg for sanity, beg for the girl to be saved somehow, beg for mercy to be shown upon the people of Paris. Even if she could not be saved physically, at least perhaps she could have a restful afterlife. He began to pray with all his might, but hardly had he begun to speak to God when the doors suddenly burst open.

Jumping to his fee, at first Fr. André thought it was one of the guards, but he soon saw the knightly attire and the red passion and sweat on the face of the young knight.

"Sir Giroux!"

The knight wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve and hurried to Fr. André saying through gasps of breath: "They're coming."

"Who's coming?" exclaimed Fr. André. "What's happened?"

He looked up at the altar again and asked God himself what this could mean in a flash of a second before he returned to Giroux.

"The king of Truands," said Giroux. "Clopin Trouillefou. He's coming with his men to raid Notre Dame. They're creating a diversion, I think, but I don't know what. Only that they're coming and that they'll know I left them before they reach here. May God forgive me my stupidity for thinking that he would help Esmeralda! Where's the archdeacon?"

"He's… he's outside," said Fr. André staring very hard at the other.

"Has it started?" demanded Giroux. "Is it really so nearly dawn?"

"Didn't you see the torchlight?" asked Fr. André.

Giroux gave a sharp nod, and said not another word as he dashed back outside again leaving Fr. André with more to beg for God's help. The little priest lowered his head.

#

As Esmeralda's crime was being read off, Quasimodo slipped back to the cathedral on his rope. Slinking along the shadows like a monkey in a tree, he watched with care and tried to decide how best to retrieve his dear friend without being stopped. It had to be quick and silent like the swoop of a bird. Like the swoop of the doves which lived in the heights of Notre Dame he would swoop down. Like the dove with the olive branch given to Noah, he would bring that last hope for La Esmeralda.

He tied his rope, readying himself on his hunches like a cat for the leap, but just as his feet were about to leave his stone perch Giroux burst onto the scene. Just barely did Quasimodo catch himself on his rope to keep from falling.

From his height, the knight's warnings were not entirely decipherable echoing against the jutting stone of the cathedral's façade. But he heard enough to understand that danger was coming in the form of what sounded like vast army to fight against Notre Dame herself. Frollo's response however was as clear as the strike of lightning as he replied, "You could be arrested yourself for such lies! Everyone knows how you've fallen for the wiles of this vixen witch!"

"I'm telling you it's true!" cried Giroux.

But the order for the commencement of the execution was given nonetheless.

Quasimodo cringed.

"Don't! Stop!" cried Giroux. " _Arrête_!"

Footholds taken away, Esmeralda dropped, but the noose only felt the weight of the girl long enough for a jolt.

In one split-second motion, the noose had been sliced with a whittler's knife which dropped to the ground as she was swooped up into the air as the dove still dangling around her neck upon its string. Up into the air she flew in the strong arms of the hunchback of Notre Dame who landed them both again neatly in the upper portions of Notre Dame's façade hiding them in her alcoves.

While everyone else, including Sir Giroux, still stood in shock, there was one person whose mind was still working though frantically. Even Fr. André who had just come out onto the open arcade hardly understood what had happened just yet. But Claude Frollo judged the situation quickly enough. At once he turned to the guards.

"Stop him."

Once in his tower Quasimodo instantly set the poor girl down; she seemed to be so in shock herself that she could not bring herself to, but Quasimodo had no time to look after her as he leapt to the bells as fast as he could. Right under the great bell Big Marie he began to ring with all his might. With tears streaming down his red flushed face he rang as hard as he could.

" _SANCTUARY_!" he cried with all the passion and franticness he could blare up from his lungs with the clarity of a bell himself. " _SANCTUARY! SANCTUARY! SANCTUARY!"_

Down below no one thought they could fittingly now go after the girl. She had the right of sanctuary, after all. The order of the archdeacon and judge of Paris could not be rightly obeyed without some conflict of obedience. The hesitation however was quickly interrupted in the form of approaching torchlight.

And this torchlight was headed by the infamous king of thieves himself adorned in a purple mask with a sharply cut nose and a feather in his cavalier's hat more magnificent than his first. His curved Eastern sword was brandished in front of him.

"Remember!" he said to the host behind him. "The bells are a sign that the knight has alerted them to our coming! We're to save our own quickly and take whatever we can from Notre Dame!"

"But she's not there!" a man close to him suddenly pointed out.

"And out element of surprise is gone because of that fool knight!" growled another, and he grabbed another man. "How did you let him escape you?"

But Clopin looked unperturbed. He snickered strangely at the sliced noose. Thrusting his sword toward the empty gibbet he said, "We still have them unprepared enough. Just show no fear and they will not have the numbers in time."

"Forward men!" shouted one of the men at Clopin's side.

Needless to say, everyone present at the now nonexistent execution did not need words to come to terror at the sudden appearance of so many angry men. Only Frollo had taken the opportunity to use the situation to his advantage. Leaving the guards to fend for themselves, he slipped away like some snake into the eaves. Giroux saw him, but he was too far away now from the cathedral, and the coming of Clopin was so near that he could not chase after Frollo at that moment. In through the Portal of the Virgin, Frollo disappeared, his knife hidden in his hand, but from the gallery, Fr. André had already seen him as well and was coming to meet him upon the steps.

"Your honor!" gasped Fr. André as soon as he caught sight of him around the spiral staircase. "Wait! This is madness! What are you going to do?"

"Out of my way, you miserable _mauviette_ ," hissed Frollo as they ran into each near the bottom of the steps.

"What's gotten into?" Fr. André cried trying to hold him back. "Get a hold of yourself! It's like Satan's possessed you!"

"Satan's possessing us all!" snarled Frollo, and he shoved the little priest away to pass him by.

Fr. André tried to catch himself but his balance could not be regained until he was on the floor as he tumbled downward. And yet, Fr. André would not be down for long. Leaping to his feet and almost tripping over his robes back face downward a second time, he managed to chase after the wild-eyed Frollo, and he continued to shout after him in his shrill little voice.

"In God's name!" he cried. "I beseech you!"

But the door to the balcony and the towers slammed in his face. By the time Fr. André reached the handle, the door had also been locked.

"Your honor! Please! Monsieur l'Archidiacre! Monsieur Frollo!" cried Fr. André banging on the door, but his cries struck the door as uselessly as his fists.

#

With all his might Quasimodo continued and did not stop either ringing or shouting until his throat was sore and his ears rang numb and he collapsed beneath the mighty bell.

"I don't know what I am," he wheezed nearly breathless into the floor with his hands still clutching the rope. "I don't know what I am, but I know there is a God and that the great cathedral Notre Dame de Paris is His house here and my home…"


	17. Chapter 17

JMJ

SEVENTEEN

Swallowing hard upon his dry throat, Quasimodo lifted his head up at the massive bell. Then after closing his eyes with a heavy sigh, he picked himself up with a head still ringing from the powerful bongs, and he dropped down to where he had laid Esmeralda in his cell. Picking her up again he set her gently upon his mat bed, and he brushed the brown curls from her face.

She did not respond.

Was it that he had been too late? Had the jolt with the rope broken her neck?

She was alive.

There was breath in her, but consciousness would not be aroused.

"Esmeralda," said Quasimodo softly.

Not so much as a twitch was found in her.

Lifting up her hand he held it to his heart, rubbed it gently, and he spoke her name once more. He touched the wooden bird around her neck and adjusted it despite himself so that it was upright for her. He put a hand against her cheek and place her hand gently again upon her chest. When still nothing occurred and he stared for some moments upon her reposed face, the tears in his eyes blurred his vision. Once her face could be seen no more through the moisture he fell upon her and began to cry softly.

"Esmeralda," he choked and begged through heavy breaths. "Please be okay. Please, God! Let her be okay." He held the girl's hand tightly this time, and he looked up heavenward and asked in a passionate whisper, "Please, dear lady, Notre Dame … my mother … the only one I almost knew … Please …" He bowed his head again. "Please plead to God like Esther to the king of Persia … that she be alright … forgive me for ever doubting your care and the goodness of your Son … Marie …"

A noise aroused his attention a little, but he did not look behind him with his focus so strongly upon his prayers and his caressing the poor girl upon the mat. The door of the tower opened below, and up the creaky steps a pair of footsteps rose. Quasimodo was not surprised to hear Frollo's voice, nor did he look behind him.

"Quasimodo …" It was a tone near pity as though it was meant to comfort Quasimodo, but it was like a dunk in the Seine in winter.

Quasimodo choked on a sob, and more tears fell from his eyes as though having overcome a hill in that choke.

He heard and felt Frollo's further approach as he spoke calmly behind him, "It is a pity. A great pity."

A thought to answer passed through Quasimodo's mind, but he was quickly distracted by the flickering eyelids of Esmeralda, which perked him up immediately if only solely upon her as she let out a little moan.

"And yet how could it be otherwise than for our bond to end this way, poor beast. To be put down like a rabid dog …" said Frollo.

As Esmeralda's eyes focused Quasimodo was about to say her name, but just as he opened his mouth a second time, the girl's eyes narrowed behind him as though at the sight of a python about to sink its fangs. She let out a strangled shriek, and Quasimodo spun around.

Just in time too had he moved, for the slash of a knife ripped through his cloak very nearly striking his neck. Stumbling backwards, Quasimodo looked up at Frollo in horror, and more than the glinting knife, he saw the demonic glint in Frollo's eyes.

"Master!" he cried.

Frollo shoved him aside and onto the ground, for in his shock, Quasimodo had become as useless as a rag, but not for long. Not when he saw the same knife that had almost struck him aimed for Esmeralda's heart, and she was trapped in that nook where lay the mat. With a growl he leapt upright and jumped on Frollo roughly, causing the madman to drop his knife. The growl which Frollo released was far more beastly than the growl of the rescuer.

With a heave of strength gathered up now, Quasimodo shoved Frollo down into a bookshelf, and as all the contents fell upon Frollo's head, Quasimodo was thus given enough time to grab Esmeralda and flee. Down the steps and out the door onto the balcony they dove. Looking down over the stone rail at the chaos and the burning torchlight he almost felt as though all the power of hell had broken loose to crash like a molten wave against the fortress of Notre Dame, but the girl broke his thoughts.

"What are we going to do?" Esmeralda asked finally oriented enough to speak.

"Where he can't follow!" gasped Quasimodo, and after adjusting the girl in his arms and looking behind the balcony to where the roof of the cathedral rose up at a slant, he made to jump back there.

Yet he did not make it further than the stone rail before he was knocked suddenly and painfully back onto the balcony. He Esmeralda next to him. Prying himself upright he saw that what had hit him had been his stool, and he did not need to look up to know the fury and madness of Frollo as he darted towards the pair. Before Quasimodo could stop him and before Esmeralda could get to her feet herself, Frollo had her by the arm, and his grasp was strong and painful enough to almost cause the girl to fall down a second time save that he swung her like a whip towards himself.

#

While this was happening above, below breaking away from the fight at last, Sir Giroux had burst into the cathedral. Above the shouts of fighting men he had distinctly heard the echo of Esmeralda's shriek when she had first woken to the blade and the madman about to strike Quasimodo. As Giroux stormed up the steps he saw at the door at the top, Fr. André trying to pry the hinges with a metal spoke.

"Abbé ! What's going on?" demanded Giroux.

"It's locked!" cried Fr. André. "The archdeacon's gone mad! You must help me before he kills them both!"

Giroux unsheathed his sword. "Stand back!"

#

Although the shouts and howls of battle below in front of Notre Dame echoed up around the bell towers in the light of fiery flames, the trio on the balcony neither saw nor heard so caught up as they were in their own fight over life and death. They hardly realized when Fr. André appeared from the stairs with Sir Giroux beside him just in time to see the attempt of the madman to plunge the knife into the girl's breast.

"Stop!" cried Fr. André.

"Frollo!" growled Sir Giroux sword in hand, but it was difficult at first to intervene with how fierce the fight was between master and slave over the poor girl.

For just then Quasimodo grabbed Frollo's knife hand just as Frollo had paused to look up at the newcomers, and with both the surprise of seeing the little priest and the knight and the sudden snatching of that strong hand around his bony wrist, Esmeralda was able to free herself scratching the other hand with her nails. She dropped to the floor, but she scrambled quickly to her feet again being pulled back even more quickly from Frollo's grasping fingers by the quick movements of the knight.

It was all Quasimodo could now do to keep Frollo from jabbing the dagger into him as he came at him with both arms outstretched like a leaping lion. Quasimodo held him back by both wrists, but he could not bring himself to shove him away entirely. Terror struck the poor boy's heart, however relieved he was of Esmeralda's escape. His strength now seemed to have lost some of its power now that Esmeralda was no longer in immediate danger. He was now facing the man he had once loved as the only family he had ever had now possessed with such hatred and monstrosity his features were nearly unrecognizable.

"Master, please!" Quasimodo begged beside himself and hardly knowing what he said. "Come back to God!"

But as the knight was just about to leap to Quasimodo's rescue and leave the girl with Fr. André, it was in the knight's movement towards them that a split second only distracted Quasimodo; the madman saw no one but his prey. In that split second was given to Frollo the opportunity he needed, for just as Quasimodo's eyes flickered away from full concentration onto the coming of Giroux's blade, Frollo kicked Quasimodo in the shin. In that same motion Frollo was also able to drive that dagger faster than seemed mortally possible straight into the heart of Quasimodo. So sudden and so straight was that dagger's aim that Quasimodo did not even know what had happened before consciousness left him.

"No!" screamed Esmeralda.

So sudden was the action of that dagger that Giroux did not have the time to catch either man as Quasimodo's limp body fell against the imbalanced Frollo upon the balcony rail, and both dropped downwards.

A deranged scream which could only be compared to the shriek of a lost soul released from Frollo's mouth in fear and in rage, and everyone on the ground had to stop their fighting and look in time to see both bodies strike the cobblestone street in front of the cathedral. Silence fell upon all as they looked upon the fallen.

"It's the archdeacon," someone said quietly after a time.

"And the hunchback of Notre Dame," said another even more hushed in tone.

#

"Jean."

The voice which Quasimodo heard held more clarity and more strength than he had ever heard. The delicate beauty and gentleness and love in that voice would have been enough to make him cry, but Quasimodo did not. He had no more tears to cry in mortal flesh, for even now he could see himself dead, mangled and bloody, upon the cobblestones with Frollo's dagger still lodged deep within his mortal heart, but from the death of his body he was drawn to the voice beyond the beauty of any mortal voice. As he looked up he saw in the light of heaven the only figure which could fit such a voice…


	18. Chapter 18

JMJ

EIGHTEEN

Pushing her way through the crowd, Esmeralda, who had suddenly fled from the arms of the knight and the protests of Fr. André, leapt down to the street in front of Notre Dame. In an uncontrollable passion she fell upon her knees before the lifeless body beneath the cloak. She could not keep back the tears, and in fact she did not try as she buried her head into his side.

Sir Giroux was not far behind her, but he slowed down as he looked upon the sobbing girl. Fr. André came up somberly last of all with hands folded together. He looked as though he might cry soon himself, but he only lowered his head and made a prayer for the faithful departed.

The knight put a hand upon Esmeralda's shoulder, and the girl jumped and turned sharply around angrily at first, but as she looked up into the knight's compassionate face, she closed her eyes and allowed the tears to renew themselves. She fell upon Giroux's chest as he knelt behind her.

" _Mais_ , the archdeacon and the hunchback killed each other," said a man from the crowd.

"The archdeacon was a madman," said Giroux calmly as slowly removed the bloody dagger from Quasimodo's chest and put it beside the body; he helped the girl to her feet then and glanced at the remains of Frollo near at hand which were less intact than the body of his servant. "The boy wanted nothing other than to rescue La Esmeralda."

Esmeralda lifted her head again up at Giroux, his face bathed in the slowly emerging light of dawn. The light of the sun broke through the barrier of the city walls to shower its morning rays upon the street of Notre Dame. Fr. André came beside the knight and as he looked down upon Quasimodo. Just as the light of the sun seemed to strike his face between the long shadows of the crowd, he thought he saw Quasimodo's eyelids flicker, and he stiffened in surprise.

"Abbé, what is it?" demanded Giroux.

Esmeralda and the knight followed the priest's gaze and those close by did too, and all saw the eyes of the hunchback of Notre Dame open upwards.

The nearby crowd held its breath as they watched the impossibility of the boy beginning to move.

"No one could have survived that!" someone exclaimed suddenly in spite of himself.

"Unnatural!"

"No! A miracle!"

"Glory to God …" breathed Fr. André in an utter stupor.

"Quasimodo!" gasped Esmeralda, the first one able to move as she dropped down beside him again. "Are you really alive?"

With a moan of one waking from a deep sleep of a long illness, Quasimodo fixed his eyes slowly upon the girl and heaved a heavy breath through his mouth. Esmeralda could not help but notice that he seemed more alive somehow than he had ever been, and not only was there no more blood spilling than what had already fallen, he seemed to have also been healed in his welt-damaged eye. The welt seemed to have dissipated immensely and his ability to see through it was as normal as her own.

"No … I …" the boy cracked.

The crowd gave out another gasp, and pushing his way through the crowd to get a closer look, Clopin Trouillefou stopped as though struck as he glared upon the hunchback of Notre Dame who had fallen from the tower. Very hard he clenched his teeth.

"You _aren't_ alive?" Esmeralda laughed despite herself and smiling past the tears renewing upon her face. "Don't be silly."

Quasimodo shook his head. "No, I mean. Jean."

Turning around she faced the knight and those near at hand. "He _is_! Don't just stand there! _Do_ something!"

"It's a sign!" gasped a man from the Court of Miracles to a cohort, and he grabbed him by the collar of his tunic.

"We shouldn't have come!" hissed a third one trembling.

"Lemme go, let's get out of here," said the man strung by the collar.

Their leader rolled his eyes at them as they slipped away, but he did not follow. Neither did any of his men that fled here look back at him. One of his men however near the edge of the ring surrounding the miraculously revived, fell flat on his face and adored for the first time in his life the Christian God along with many of the guards and a few new bystanders who lived in the nearby buildings.

With a little effort, Quasimodo began to slowly climb onto a wobbly pair of legs, but Esmeralda stopped him.

"She's right," said Giroux finally able to speak himself, "let's get him inside."

As men aided Giroux in helping the boy, a guard still idle looked down at Frollo uneasily as if he half expected the old judge to also suddenly lift himself upright like a vampire, but it remained as motionless as any dead in the grave.

"I have to tell you …" Quasimodo said fumbling over his words and trying to get loose enough to walk on his own, but he did not seem to have the strength to fight his helpers. "I have something to say… I…"

"No, no. Sh-h-h-h-h," said Esmeralda coming close and touching his hand gently. "Not now."

As he was set down inside a dormitory in the cloisters, Esmeralda was quick to be at his side and she stroked his sweaty head. Quasimodo smiled, but could not look her straight in the eyes for very long in his shyness.

"Get a doctor," said Fr. André in the doorway to one of the guards, and the order was quickly obeyed.

Sir Giroux meanwhile carefully removed Quasimodo's cloak and untied the string of his tunic enough to see where the blade had pierced him to his heart, but though a great gash was deeply embedded into his chest, and the tunic was soaked in blood, the wound itself was not bleeding and his heart was no doubt beating at a normal enough rate if he was speaking and moving as he was. The scab was building quickly, ugly but as a proper wound of less serious nature would. Even still the knight went to get some water to clean it. Esmeralda cleaned the blood that had gotten on his face and neck and shoulders. Fr. André helped him to drink some alcohol, which he also put on the wounds as a disinfectant.

All the while poor Quasimodo would try to speak to them again in slow intervals, but no one would hear of it now.

"Come, poor boy," said Fr. André. " _Calme toi_. You must calm down. God has given you a great grace, but you must calm yourself."

"But she told me—" Quasimodo tried to say but a sudden new voice interrupted.

"What did she tell you?" It was not the doctor nor any guard.

"Monsieur Trouillefou!" cried Esmeralda.

At the sound of the name both men looked up quite more alarmed than she.

"What are you doing here?" demanded the knight on his feet at once with his sword at the ready.

"No! Don't," gasped Esmeralda.

Clopin however was unperturbed. He barely graced the knight with a glance as he looked down with all seriousness and all thought upon Quasimodo looking back upon the king of Truands with some bewilderment. Yet after a moment Quasimodo's face seemed to grow in understanding. A look of patient expectance overtook him as he lifted himself a little from the bed upon which he had been laid.

"I didn't mean to cause a scene, Sir knight," said Clopin straightening himself prominently. "I was just here to ask a question." And he nodded to the boy, "I want to know what the infamous Hunched Back of Notre Dame has seen that caused his impossible escape from death from which no man I have ever known with such an impact on the body even has."

"Well …" said Quasimodo looking down briefly. "I _was_ dead, monsieur."

Clopin cocked his head curiously. "And what was death like?" he asked.

"I… it all happened so fast at first, getting killed," said Quasimodo, "that I didn't even know that I was dead, but I saw myself then. Then I knew. I couldn't stay. I had to go. She called my name. My _real_ name. Jean. And then I could see her. The Beautiful Lady. Notre Dame. My angel too with my Lady took me before God for my judgment. I was not wholly innocent of crime. For them I must make up for, but I had never become wholly adulterated by the evil which surrounded me. I was under the protection of Notre Dame. My promise to Abbé Benjamin … his prayer for me to keep the promise as he died in anguish at knowing what was happening to me. It was the inspiration and the grace given to us both to accept or turn away from. Ask my Lady to keep me innocent, to think of her as my mother, to ask for understanding, to never forget that I am a temple of the Holy Ghost, to thank God ever day for the gift of life He has given me. Her mantel was ever over me. Through her intersession God kept me from despairing or growing bitter in my dungeon tower. It was through my Lady that I never lost my way entirely, for it was made quite clear to me through the days of my life falling out before me as the unrolling of a scroll, that I would have been lost otherwise. I would have followed the despair of poor Master Frollo as I had nearly done anyway had it not been for my Lady. I was given the grace to die courageously for the life of another. For Agnes.

"My Lady asked me, after I knew my place in the afterlife, if I wanted to come back. To be a witness. For Paris. My people. The walls of the church in Paris have become cold and dark stone and shadows."

Clopin eyed him queerly and crossed his arms. "What does the lady say about those _not_ within the confines of the cold walls?"

"She has one thing," said the boy softly with a nod. "One thing for you, Mikah. That the restlessness in your heart, which has plagued you all your life will leave you free if you accept her offer to come to her this day forever."

Clopin frowned, and it was a deep and troubled frown. A disturbance unknown on the face of the usually very merry Mad Terror littered his features from eye to eye and tightly knit his brow above and pursed his lip. Anger shone for a moment, and he turned away with a clench in his teeth. He closed his eyes and then he turned slowly back. The knight watched him all the while most suspiciously, but though Clopin was aware of this he ignored the man entirely.

Suddenly he fell at the bedside of Quasimodo upon his knees. Very low did the mighty king bow his head. His face nearly touched the floor. He removed his cavalier's hat, and threw it carelessly aside.

"I accept this day," he said very firmly with a hand to his heart. "Tell her I accept."

"You already have yourself," said the boy.

Then Quasimodo lifted his eyes to Esmeralda with deep compassion in his face. "I was supposed to tell _you_ too."

"What?" asked the girl.

"You were Agnes of a poor girl who died of malnutrition and the lack of charity shown to her, but she made one woman promise to try to care for you. That woman loved you dearly and wanted desperately to keep that promise, but she herself could not keep you either she realized. After a few months, she could no longer see how she could keep you well enough for you to live, so she left you at the cathedral to be taken care of by the Church. You were taken away by an unhappy family who traded their disfigured child for you— a beautiful child. When your adopted mother who had left you there heard herself what had happened she locked herself up, and has been so locked for many long years. All faith and hope in God or regard for man has nearly vanished from her soul. This very day she is contemplating ending her own life and will this night if you do not go to her. She has been near you often though you did not know. She is a nun in the convent very close to where we are now, and …"

" _Oh_!" Agnes cried unable to contain her emotion any longer.

In a burst of all inside her turning loose she fell suddenly upon Jean who was at first very much surprised as she held him hard in a firm embrace, her head against his chest so that she could hear the beating of his heart. She clung as though she would never let him go. Jean was staggered, blinking wide-eyed as Sir Giroux tried to intervene for fear she was hurting him, but Fr. André held him back. As the tears began to fall from the girl's eyes, Jean closed his eyes and comforted her gently. Tears of his own began to roll down his cheeks, and he hugged Agnes in return, entwining them together as their lives had always been.

In this embrace did the doctor find him when the guards and the little gypsy boy known as Djali all came onto the scene. The gypsy boy watched carefully from behind the men, and he looked in surprise to see the humbled Clopin, who although stood upright now was as if a different man, but he temporarily forgot everything else as Esmeralda at last broke free from her embrace. The little boy ran up to her quickly and hugged her tightly too.

"Come on," said Agnes to her young companion. "I'm going to meet my mother that God's Mother told me still lives."


	19. Epilogue

JMJ

EPILOGUE

At first it did take time for Agnes' adopted mother to believe that the same child was the babe kidnapped and (some said devoured) by murderous gypsies. Not even the baby booties that Agnes had always kept tied upon a string beneath her blouse at first convinced her, but when she did it was a floodgate's released. Tears and sobs from both girl and woman, and little Djali was quite overwhelmed and could not help but wonder if he would lose La Esmeralda like a jewel to the sea, but that was not the case. From then on Djali was the charge of Agnes and Agnes and Djali took care of Agnes' mother. Both boy and girl were ever under the watchful eyes of Pierre Giroux.

The false marriage of La Esmeralda and Sir Giroux was, of course, dissolved as though it never was. Though, they ever remained close as a girl to an older brother. In a couple years' time he married a young widow with a single child, and a couple years after that Agnes found someone to marry too with Djali as their adopted child; though Djali never called her mother. He was the one to the very last to ever call her Esmeralda and nothing more or less.

Fr. André remained at Notre Dame for some time, and for some years there was neither Archdeacon nor Archbishop until they gave that title to Fr. André.

And as chance or (more likely) Providence would have it, a new priest was sent to Paris though not at Notre Dame, a priest that had once given up the life of a king to such service, for no other service could he think to give to a Mother he had never given thought to before. Yes, yes, the King of Truands, as fantastic and almost silly as it may sound, gave heart and soul to the Church of God, and ever did he remind his flock of the tale of Notre Dame, the tale of Jean de Cloche, and true, he does still live at the cathedral, the hunchback of Notre Dame.

Ever does he ring his bells. I have heard it said too that he still lives in the bell tower though many have tried to convince him otherwise. He could not be parted with Notre Dame, he says, not for all the world.

FIN


End file.
